AFP: Bush reads Camus's 'The Stranger' on ranch vacation

[DeepModem Mom]

Bush reads Camus's 'The Stranger' on ranch vacation
Aug 11


(Breitbart)
Albert Camus

US President George W. Bush quoted French existential writer Albert Camus to European leaders a year and a half ago, and now he's read one of his most famous works: "The Stranger."

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday that Bush, here on his Texas ranch enjoying a 10-day vacation from Washington, had made quick work of the Algerian-born writer's 1946 novel -- in English.

The US president, often spoofed as an intellectual lightweight, quoted Camus in a February 21, 2005 speech in Brussels...."We know there are many obstacles, and we know the road is long. Albert Camus said that 'freedom is a long-distance race.' We're in that race for the duration," Bush said in those remarks.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/08/11/060811231406.rsxjfr54.html

[LTR]

1. I didn't know there was a pop-up version of it

Now all the Repugs will disown him. He's reading intellectual material? From a Frenchman?

Egads!

[ashling]

11. He's reading the Classic's Illustrated version

they brought those back just for him.

[Joe Bacon]

54. I bet he read the Cliff's Notes version

He MIGHT be able to comprehend that!

[kath]

83. I doubt he's even capable of reading Cliff's Notes- my bet's on the pop-up

version.

[anotherdrew]

61. he just likes the part about shooting the arab on the beach n/t

[calimary]

87. "The Idiot's Guide to Camus"?

Or maybe "Camus for Dummies."

:eyes:

[smirkymonkey]

90. Actually, he though Camus was the author of the "Babar" series.

Imagine his disappointment.

[wakeme2008]

2. Well we know Bush's speech writer read it but did Bush

:rofl:

[Dulcinea]

37. He can read? eom

[Radioactive]

69. I was thinking the same thing!

Maybe its an audio book. ;)

[aquart]

3. Wanna bet?

[Oak2004]

8. Of course he did!

He really did read "The Stranger, by Paul Camus"

And since he's done reading that, next vacation he'll open up the book cover and see if he can read a little of the first page, too.

:sarcasm:

[Ouabache]

4. Well, it is a fairly shorter novel, but way longer than My Pet Goat

Of course dickweed should have read it before he ever attended Yale and Harvard, if he was doing college reading lists in high school.

[Ian David]

50. THE Pet Goat. n/t

[yorkiemommie1]

70. exactly

n/t

[lebkuchen]

5. Is Bush contemplating what his life will be like while on trial

for killing Muslims, as per the main character in the book, Meursault? Does he identify with Meursault's character as being cold, distant, uncaring, and apathetic?

[ClintonTyree]

21. You're assuming he actually read the book.......

bush couldn't possibly gain any insight even if he DID read it. The man is as intellectually barren as a parsnip. They're forever attempting to persuade Americans that this troglodyte is a deep thinker, a man who envelopes himself in intellectual stimulation. :eyes: He hasn't the intellect that god gave gravel but every year they try to convince us that he's a deep thinker when he's actually reading the "Sports Illustrated swim-suit issue".
The man is a dunce and they'll never be able to convince us otherwise.

[Tansy_Gold]

39. I think you owe some people an apology

You've just insulted parsnips AND gravel AND troglodytes, in the same post. Really, that's very close to unforgivable. :evilgrin:


Kidding aside, I hardly think the brief and rather generic quote that was allegedly used (I never heard the speech, so I'll stick with "alleged") hardly signifies anything. Had booosh gone on to examine the quote and what it meant in the context of whatever other drivel was drooling out of his mouth, I might be rather more inclined to believe he has a funtioning intellect. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I'll continue to believe the man is esentially, well, stupid.

After all, one can declaim, "Out, out, damned spot" and not be a scholar of Shakespeare. One could, in fact, just be chasing the dog off the bed.



Tansy Gold

[anotherdrew]

62. troglodyte-americans deserve better than to be lumped in with bush n/t LOL

[Lisa]

77. as do parsnips!

At least they don't give themselves airs.

Plus, unlike Bush, they're actually good for something.

http://www.harvington.org.uk/hic/parsnipwine2.html

[saltpoint]

6. He probably gave it 6 or 7 paragraphs, then tossed it and went out

to clear brush.

[w4rma]

7. He carried the book but read a summary written by his staff, probably (nt)

[Duer 157099]

9. I can't wait until we have a prez who reads a book without it being news

I mean, again -- I know we used to have some of those.

[Vinca]

18. We've actually had presidents who have written books . . .

and not with crayons.:rofl:

[reichstag911]

28. Hey, George W. done wrote hisself a book!

It's called A Charge to Keep, and he done wrote it "with" Karen Hughes. (As to whether the "Charge" of the title is for DUI, cocaine posession, or vandalism, I have no idea.)

[Olney Blue]

81. Speak of the devil- haven't heard much from Karen Hughes lately about

how the "hearts and minds" program is going in the ME.

[Solly Mack]

10. How pathetic is that? It's "news"

"Hey, have you heard? America's President can read."
"No way!?!?!"
"The WH press release said so"

Look up his previous vacations - press releases also remarked that he was reading then as well.

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush's vacation is shorter this year, and so is his reading list.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14191705/
"As he did last year, Bush took three history books along to his Texas ranch. But in 2005, Bush planned a whole month away from the White House and had 1,500 pages of reading to fill his time. This year, with just 10 days of break time, the president took about 1,000 pages worth.

Two of the books were about Republican Party hero Abraham Lincoln — "Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power," by Richard Carwardine, and "Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural," by Ronald C. White Jr."

December 28, 2005
Bush vacation reading
http://www.intheagora.com/archives/2005/12/bush_vacation_r.html

Bush dogged on vacation by critics
Posted 8/23/2005 8:42 PM
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-08-23-bush-idaho_x.htm
"His vacation is not all biking and book reading."

[Judi Lynn]

16. It's truly, truly sad. Deeply embarrassing for the country that these

outlandish p.r. pieces, made to try to pad out the guy's image as a normal person, are being pitched as "news" stories.

It tells you the man is a complete idiot, and they know we know, and they won't accept it. Knuckle draggers' stubborn pride.

The whole world knows.

[MrPrax]

42. It's the perfect book for him...

French existentialism aside...Bush won't like the ending...

And why would Bush be attracted to what used to be a high school level book?

Well it's about a soul-less imperialist who ends up murdering an Arab in cold-blood and for no reason other than being 'momentarily' enraged by the sun.

But he might not like how it ends...

As the last lines of the book say:

For the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world...For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.

[xchrom]

12. what do these three things have in common: the tooth fairy, sasquatch,

and bush reads camus?

[Vidar]

13. "Bush reads"--now that would be news. The very idea of this

xenophobic, fundamentalist lightweight appreciating an atheistic French existentialist is ludicrous. I would, however, recommend Camus' death to our imperial moron

[OneBlueSky]

14. yeah . . . and I got a bridge in Brooklyn for sale . . .

five will get you ten that Bush can't even pronounce Camus . . .

[reichstag911]

29. "Rhymes with anus, right?" nt

[Ecumenist]

15. Oh please...

I was born at night but it wasn't last night....... in front of a speeding turnip truck, with spiked tires, dragged 450 feet and flung into a field of prickly cactus. I don't believe that anymore that I believe that anyone can push a car uphill with a rope.

[HuffleClaw]

17. BULLSHIT of the worst sort

what a joke. as much of a joke as the tale of him 'clearing brush'

[cami715]

30. I agree!

He is drunk on his butt the whole time he is at Crawford. That's why it took him hours to comment on the latest "terra plot" this week. Chertoff and the others gave an early morning news conference, but they couldn't get Bush sobered up for hours!

As for reading - what a joke. If his spokesperson has to comment on it, you know it is not true.

[Skittles]

75. WHAT A LOAD OF HORSE SHIT

unbelievable the way they try to make an intellectual out of that incompetent, illiterate piece of SHIT

[IChing]

19. Another Camus thread here.

which Bush.......now imagine this.....look at his eyes....
he is ready .......he.....has

' finally transcend its symbolic imprisonment "
"and frees himself for a life beyond what society could offer him.' ...
(just cutting, pasting and thinking)

this was the observation that they had for the end of their evaluation,
. (sorry Yale)
From Harvard studies; google it. ......come on, try to google it


since the irony,
do I really have to explain
life's irony,
to go back to your beginning or his?
Let alone to all of us or to the beginning of this?
To explain to you

his staff is saying this to You
and of course to themselves?
.......let me remind you to kindly think...........Of course he read this....

This book, is within a close radius of the 10
most destructive books ever written
according... ok, top 30....
the link which I will give you,

..Camus was french and thought....
and from Algeria......google it....http://www.jasonn.com/node/180

Ok, well.........LOL
Sorta of like Monty Python....and .those other so called Existentialist that never understood irony.

LINK here for the other thread....newbies or lazi people like me.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1892095&mesg_id=1892095


Biggest piece of bullshit I ever read that he or you would read
let alone think

[no_hypocrisy]

20. Question: Is the medium a comic book or a coloring book? n/t

[deminks]

22. "An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. "

A quote from Camus. Think about it, Smirky. Here is more:

To insure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough, a police force is needed as well.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.

If there is sin against life, it consists... in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.



Now put the book down and go out and ride your bike.

[MasonJar]

23. When I read it in college, it was in French. I guess it is in comic

book form now. And what do we care that Bush has finally read a new book...let's see last year it was a biography of someone? After all by his own admission, we know that he read one book in his 4 years at Yale...probably "My Pet Goat." Is he now suddenly an intellectual?

[patdem]

My thought exactly..if bush went to college...why did he not read Camus

there..and Kafka...it was required reading in a Catholic College...Providence College...sorry..if Harvard is so behind the times?

[patdem]

68. My thought exactly..if bush went to college...why did he not read Camus

there..and Kafka...it was required reading in a Catholic College...Providence College...sorry..if Harvard is so behind the times?

[MasonJar]

24. And since when did the Stump ever write his own speeches?

[peekaloo]

25. I'll bet the 'weed originally pronounced his name Kaymus.

:eyes:

[LostinVA]

36. That's the first thing I said to the SO

[Jazzgirl]

26. I bet he bought the Cliff's Notes version.

n/t

[chieftain]

27. When the boy president is finished he can read The Plague.

Another Camus effort whose title foreshadows W's regime although originally penned about the Nazia

[tanyev]

31. Yo freepers! Your hero is reading FRENCH existentialism.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

(Not that I believe it for a second. Sure, he may have sat down with the book and actually flipped through every page, but that doesn't really count. This man is well documented as not having the attention span to sit through movies more challenging than Mission: Impossible.)

[IndianaGreen]

48. That's an excellent talking point to Freepers

I don't believe Bush has ever read anything at a higher intellectual level than My Pet Goat, and that this is nothing more than a BS PR spin by the White House trying to rehabilitate Bush.

If Bush quotes Camus, does that make it Freedom existentialism?

:P

[chat_noir]

102. Alert Bill O'Reilly!!!

Per O'Reilly, aren't we to boycott all things French?!

[e-mail]

[Thor_MN]

32. Putting the dust jacket of "The Stranger" on an issue of "Oolala"

does not consititute reading a french novel.

No way is that mental midget going to get through more than the likes and dislikes of the centerfold in a mere 10 day vacation.

[KoKo]

33. OMG! This thread is a Hoot! I gave it a recommendation for Greatest

Page! :rofl:

[fjc]

34. Not even Camus' contemporaries, like Sartre, understood him.

I seriously doubt that Bush does. And "The Stranger" has been called Camus's most subtle work.
Camus would most certainly have been viscerally opposed to this war in Iraq.

Bobby Kennedy read Camus after John was assassinated. He really got something out of it. It saved his soul.

[OKNancy]

35. mother issues

I wonder if he could relate to the fact that the protaganist had no remorse at his mother's funeral.

---

"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself - so like a brother, really - I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate."

[IndianaGreen]

46. Bush may have "mother" issues, like you said

I have never read Camus. I know that President Kennedy had really read Camus. I only know of Sartre's peace activism. I did read and see Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse, a book in which the heroine's mother is already dead and her father is a womanizer. On a more mundane matter Sartre and Sagan's relationship was legendary in France.

As to Bush's "mother" issue, I have long suspected he suffered from an Oedipus complex, competing with his father for his mother's affection. I think that one of the reasons Bush was obsessed about sending our armies into Baghdad was that he wanted to "succeed" at something his father did not do, taking down Saddam.

Political speaking, it was the elder Bush's decision to stop the Gulf War, once he got the Iraqis out of Kuwait, that will be seen as one of the wisest wartime decisions ever made by an American President. We now know what would have happen to us had the elder Bush marched on Baghdad.

[Freedomofspeech]

38. Just another liberal media lie!!!!!

We all know he can't read.

[susu369]

40. Ah-h-h, now bu$h* can have another "favorite philosopher"

when he gets that question.

[bikebloke]

41. A prop

He uses the book to prop his Gameboy on his lap. That way the peanut butter and jelly fingerprints stain the book and not his trousers.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

43. Remember how Bush Sr. was supposedly fond of pork rinds?

Turns out it was just a PR gimmick to make him look like an average guy?

Same thing. They're trying to make this over-dressed chimpanzee appear as though he has a working brain.

[Judi Lynn]

45. The pork rind story: unbelievably awful!

Never heard it before. Didn't know it was possible to feel more disgust toward the family until now!

It's damned interesting learning about this. Pork rinds! Odd as hell.

[MaineDem]

44. No, no, no...it was Billy Joel's "The Stranger" on CD

Tony got it a little wrong.

[EndElectoral]

47. A few Camus quotes...

"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants."

"We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives...inside ourselves"

"I love my country too much to be a nationalist."

"As soon as one does not kill oneself, one must keep silent about life."

"I was about to tell him he was wrong to dwell on it, because it really didn't matter. But he cut me off and urged me one last time, drawing himself up to his full height and asking me if I believed in God. I said no. He sat down indignantly. He said it was impossible; all men believed in God, even those who turn their backs on him. That was his belief, and if he were ever to doubt it, his life would become meaningless. 'Do you want my life to be meaningless?' he shouted. As far as I could see, it didn't have anything to do with me, and I told him so. But from across the table he had already thrust the crucifix in my face and was screaming irrationally, 'I am a Christian. I ask Him to forgive you for sins. How can you not believe that He suffered for you?' I was struck by how sincere he seemed, but I had had enough. It was getting hotter and hotter. As always, whenever I want to get rid of someone I'm not really listening to, I made it appear as if I agreed. To my surprise, he acted triumphant. 'You see, you see!' he said. 'You do believe, don't you, and you're going to place your trust in Him, aren't you?' Obviously, I again said no. He fell back in his chair."

"If, after all, men cannot always make history have meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one."

[EndElectoral]

49. Interesting the Stranger is about the justiufication of killing "the Arab"

...

"When the prosecutor returned to his seat, there was a rather long silence. My head was spinning with heat and astonishment. The presiding judge cleared his throat and in a very low voice asked me if I had anything to add. I stood up, and since I did wish to speak, I said, almost at random, in fact, that I never intended to kill the Arab. The judge replied by saying that at least that was an assertion, that until then he hadn't quite grasped the nature of my defense, and that before hearing from my lawyer he would be happy to have me state precisely the motives for my act. Fumbling a little with my words and realizing how ridiculous I sounded, I blurted out that it was because of the sun. People laughed. My lawyer threw up his hands....

.....

Quite revealing.....

[AliceWonderland]

55. Yes, that was my first though too - killing The Arab

Nice. Makes it almost believable.

Perhaps someone is reading it to him, and reworking into very small words?

[anotherdrew]

64. maybe he's listening to The Cure too LOL how strange this news is n/t

[Supersedeas]

92. Wonder what his fundie supporters think of all that--the Cure would send

them over the top.

[sofa king]

88. And all existential BS aside, the answer is, "because he could."

[Junkdrawer]

51. From the next Presidential news conference:

Q. Mr. President, why did you fixate on Saddam and invade Iraq?

A. The Arab drew his knife and held it up to me in the sun. The light shot off the steel and it was like a long flashing blade cutting at my forehead. At the same instant the sweat in my eyebrows dripped down over my eyelids all at once and covered them with a warm, thick film. My eyes were blinded by the curtain of tears and salt. All I could feel were the cymbals of sunlight crashing on my forehead and, indistinctly, the dazzling spear flying up from the knife in front of me. The scorching blade slashed at my eyelashes and stabbed at my stinging eyes. That's when everything began to reel. The sea carried up a thick, fiery breath. It seemed to me as if the sky split open from one end to the other to rain down fire. My whole being tensed and I squeezed my hand around the revolver. The trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside of the butt; and there, in that noise, sharp and deafening at the same time, is where it all started. I shook off the sweat and sun. I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. and it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.

[oppositionmember]

52. Dipping into Sartre & Kierkegaard too no doubt

[sofa king]

89. Maybe only after we start killing Scandiavians.

[Eurobabe]

53. Prob reading 'Camus for Dummies'

When Asshat starts reading Kant in German, then I'll be impressed.

[JerseygirlCT]

56. I think we read that in um... 9th or 10th grade?

I wonder if they just found him the Cliff Notes?

[Minstrel Boy]

60. Yes! This was required reading in grade 9

where I went to school. And in grade 11 we had to read it in French. It's barely 100 pages. Jeesh.

[JerseygirlCT]

67. Yup, even with my crappy French, I remember reading it!

The image of Bush reading it in French is too funny somehow.

[MrCoffee]

57. Remember this piece from The Onion?

Bush Regales Dinner Guests With Impromptu Oratory on Virgil's Minor Works

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28498?issue=4228&special=2001

[Barrett808]

58. He should be reading "The Plague". n/t

[Retrograde]

59. I thought propaganda was supposed to be plausible

I could buy W reading a Dan Brown novel or something on that level, but an existentialist?
Even his claim to have been reading that biography of John Adams a few years back had some semblance of reality (Did he ever finish that? Or did he put it down when he got to the parts about how John Quincy Adams took advantage of his father's status to make himself an urbane, educated man and a skilled diplomat?)

If W's so interested in French Algeria, maybe he can watch The Battle of Algiers and look for the parallels with Iraq.

[Peace Patriot]

63. Listen, this is a very dangerous thing for Bush to be reading. It lays

out the case for the utter indifference of the universe to us, and of us to the universe and to our fellow and sister human beings. Thus murder is a matter of indifference. Why should anybody care? Laws, court, all nonsense in a nonsensical universe where both the good guys and the bad guys have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people without a thought.

He won't get the irony. He'll think some great philosopher--a French fry no less--has endorsed the Bush junta view of things.

[Barrett808]

65. I wonder if the cognitive dissonance with his Christian "beliefs"...

...will cause him any discomfort?

[melnjones]

71. I wondered that too...nt

[grannylib]

66. He probably read the first page, just like he SAID he reads the

'front page' of the newspapers.
Just before he said he 'hears the voices.'

He's fucking delusional, and anyone who thinks the little fucker is literate is delusional too.

[Tight_rope]

72. Yeah right....You mean he's reading "MY PET GOAT" again!

[lumpy]

73. Laughing my A off.

Wonder how many times the little pissante had to rehearse the quote. Did he get the quote correct or did he muff it?

[truthisfreedom]

74. "often spoofed as an intellectual lightweight..." erm... spoofed?

sorry, mr. writer, sir, but he reminds us painfully on a regular basis.

[Lisa]

76. "quick work" -- translates to "flipped through without actually reading"

Next, watch him zip through Ovid's Metamorphoses!


Based on what I've seen in academia, the only people who brag about making a "quick" read of a philosophy book are those who are highly intelligent and have already thought about many of the concepts on their own ... and those who just want others to think they are smart (or want to give the impression that they have done the assigned course readings, while hoping the prof doesn't ask them anything). Unfortunately, the number of people in the first group is actually rather small, and nothing Bush has done convinces me that he is one of them! (And many of the truly smart people do not brag about this sort of thing, anyway.)

[truthisfreedom]

80. only pausing to look for pictures... not finding, any, he had milk and

cookies and took his nap.

[Miss Chybil]

78. That they feel they HAVE to tell us he's actually reading something

speaks for itself.

[keta11]

79. Bush can read??????????????? n/t

[dflprincess]

82. I remember a Camus quote Bobby Kennedy used often

"We cannot prevent this from being a world in which children are tortured, but we can do something to lessen the number of tortured children." I doubt we'll hear George-boy using that one - unless he applies it to "snowflake" babies.

Didn't Camus also say something like "I would like to able to love my country and justice."?

[tinfoilinfor2005]

84. I don't think they make a coloring book version.

And if they did I don't think it would hold his attention.

[Lisa]

85. alas, Bush hasn't got the patience and dexterity for coloring books ...

His attention span (and increasingly-frequent tantrums) are much worse than the average two-year-old's.

[retread]

86. On a previous vacation he hurt himself choking on a pretzel and on this

one he is reading Camus. Hahahahahahahahaha. If he weren't such a dangerous psychopath he would be hilarious.

[kedrys]

91. Oh please. That fat little drunken coked-out frat bitch can read?????

I call bullshit. I had to read Camus in the original French for school and didn't make it to the end of any of his books - too depressing and tedious.

[The Stranger]

93. He is reading the novel which serves as my DU user name?

Okay, now I am really scared. Honored? Insulted.

Fuck, I don't know what to be.

[Irreverend IX]

94. C'mon, be nice. I'm sure Bush was inspired by the book.

The Stranger tells of a time and place where a white man who killed an Arab could be executed for murder. I'm sure that reading it has filled Dubya's little heart with determination to make sure that any American who exercises his patriotic right to exterminate Muslims receives a Medal of Freedom and a FOX News accolade instead of a trial.

[drduffy]

95. Bush thought the title was 'The Strangler'

[Az_lefty]

96. The WH press corp should give him a pop quiz n/t

[DrunkenMaster]

97. "Killing an Arab" by the Cure

is based upon that novel. Huh.

[AnneD]

98. OMG...

while outside a while ago, I saw a UFO in the NW sky and couldn't make it out. I know now it was a flying pig.:rofl:

Got to go to the rest room....I think a monkey is trying to fly out of my butt....:rofl::rofl:

So if he cannot pass the test can we PLEASE leave him behind (or at least demote him).

[screenplaya]

99. Shortest book in the house.

Was this planted to pre-empt the Iranian President saying this was what his top hobby was?

[yellowcanine]

100. I wasn't aware thay had that one in "Classic Comics"

[gulliver]

101. Next we'll hear Bush has Springsteen on his iPod.

Poor Camus. He would hate Bush.