More on the President’s reading list

As is inevitable, pundits have started to criticize the column Karl Rove wrote a few days ago, about George Bush's wide-ranging reading habits. The reading habits of President Bush

Here's one from the Washington Post's Richard Cohen. And it's awfully odd.

Richard Cohen – George W. Bush as an Avid Reader – washingtonpost.com

In what without a doubt is the most astounding op-ed piece of the year, Karl Rove reveals that his friend and former boss, George W. Bush, has read probably hundreds of books over the course of his presidency. One of them was Albert Camus' "The Stranger," with its unforgettable opening lines: "Mother died today. Or perhaps it was yesterday, I don't know." After reading Rove's Wall Street Journal column, it's clear there's much we all don't know.

Bush's choice of the Camus classic is odd on the face of it. It is a novel about estrangement, about an amoral, irreligious man (Meursault) who never shows emotion. It is a book out of my Gauloise-smoking youth, read in the vain pursuit of women of literary bent, and not something I would think an over-60 president would read. Maybe this is what happens when you have to give up jogging.