5/15/2005

So, Like, These People Can't Afford Their Own Books?:
Follow-up to yesterday's note on President Bush's seeming inability to finish reading Tom Wolfe's novel I Am Charlotte Simmons: Time reports that an aide said that Bush was holding the book last Wednesday, despite having claimed to finish it twice before, because it was being returned to him by his biking partner, Mike Wood (an old friend of the President's who, one might assume, could afford his own damn copy). Bush is currently "reading" The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Kang Chol-Hwan, said the aide. Yup, it's all cleared up now.

Kang's book is about the horrors of being imprisoned for years without trial, without being able to defend oneself against unknown charges, and about the beatings and humiliations endured by the writer until he was released with no explanation. Oughta be an eye-opening read. Or it'll tell Bush how to make Gitmo even harsher.

Shout out to Taegan Goddard for the heads up.