'Jonathan Freedland clearly fails to understand irony. Bush's "only ever read one book" line was a self-deprecating joke of the type the British media so often doesn't get.'
People serious about books and writing know that Bush is not someone who reads. It is obvious in his words and movements - he has attention deficit - and rigid, simplistic ideas.
It's the kind of thing one just knows the way a good detective reads the psychology of a suspect.
If he ever "reads" history, it would be silly fluff, not much different to watching a television episode of a show set in WWII.
Indeed, Bush is so lacking in educational achievement, it is clear he was what Americans call a "legacy graduate" of the universities he attended.
That term, likely unfamiliar in Britain, is used to describe people whose grades and efforts do not warrant their admission, much less their graduation, from a good quality university.
But these universities - Yale, Harvard, etc - are always on the hunt for money for their endowment funds, much the way a U.S. Senator spends two-thirds of his or her time digging for campaign funds. They are also keen to "collect" prestigious names on their roles.
Clowns like Bush are accepted because the family is wealthy, and it is fully understood that donations will be forthcoming.
Also, in Bush's case, his father is quite intelligent with distinguished aspects in his career.
Our Bush unfortunately got his intellectual endowment from mummy, one of the dimmest women to reside in the White House in the 20th century, her focus being Fluffy the dog and baking cookies (just check her recorded statements in the wake of Katrina in New Orleans or on bodies being returned from Iraq for the measure of her intellectual mediocrity).
