Karl Rove vs. President Bush Book Challenge

Posted by Jack on 01.07.2009 at 2:59 pm

Karl Rove, courtesy of the WSJ:

With only five days left, my lead is insurmountable. The competition can’t catch up. And for the third year in a row, I’ll triumph. In second place will be the president of the United States. Our contest is not about sports or politics. It’s about books. It all started on New Year’s Eve in 2005. President Bush asked what my New Year’s resolutions were. I told him that as a regular reader who’d gotten out of the habit, my goal was to read a book a week in 2006. Three days later, we were in the Oval Office when he fixed me in his sights and said, “I’m on my second. Where are you?” Mr. Bush had turned my resolution into a contest. [...]At year’s end, I defeated the president, 110 books to 95. My trophy looks suspiciously like those given out at junior bowling finals. The president lamely insisted he’d lost because he’d been busy as Leader of the Free World. [...] A glutton for punishment, Mr. Bush insisted on another rematch in 2008. But it will be a three-peat for me: as of today, his total is 40 volumes to my 64.

So the suggestion is that the leader of the free world was reading almost 2 books a week in 2006.  I’m not commenting on Bush’s education in any way, that is not a question here, my question is merely this, should the President have enough time to be reading two books a week, in addition to spending time with his family, reading the paper (or whatever a president does to stay up to date) and, you know, running the country?  (To be clear, I would be more than a little bit concerned if Obama were claiming to have done the same thing so this has nothing to do with politics).

As a full time social media/brand writing professional who works for a book company I don’t have enough time to read two books a week and I’m a pretty quick reader… so how does GWB pull it off? Especially during a war? I don’t know, reader, I just don’t know.

Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized, books, george w bush, karl rove, reading, speed reading