I'd been right, I was still right, I was always right.
President Bush, Tony Snow tells us, read Albert Camus' novel The Stranger during his vacation in Crawford, Texas.
So do I. Even staunch Republicans have raised questions about Bush's intellect, but it's not just that. It's that it would be hard to imagine a novel that was more out-of-character for George W. Bush to be reading — and for his press secretary to be bragging about him reading. The Stranger (intellectual, atheist, French) seems more like something Tony Snow would accusing Ned Lamont of having read as evidence of his supposed Blue-state elitism.
So for kicks, I'm taking nominations in comments for George W. Bush's Implausible Anthology. I'll start with a few of nominations of my own: D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterly's Lover; Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here; James Joyce, Finnegans Wake.
On the other hand, The Stranger involves the senseless killing of an Arab followed by a public execution, and it begins with the sentence, "Mother died today." So maybe he liked it.
(CX: Finnegans — no apostrophe. Thanks PNH & Hagsrus.)
Update: George W. Bush reads Camus (as told to Julian Sanchez)
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