Al Franken on Bush's Bible reading

Archive: Skeptics & Atheists

Al Franken suspects George Bush has been fibbing about his Bible reading. I doubt if Bush enjoys reading anything, much less lovely 17th century English prose. From Franken’s interview with Beliefnet Editor-in-Chief Steven Waldman:

There’d been this article about Bush & God in Newsweek. It describes this Bible group that Don Evans [Bush’s Commerce Secretary and longtime friend] got Bush into when he stopped drinking. [Newsweek writer Howard] Fineman describes it as scriptural boot camp. Ten guys and each week they’d study a chapter of a book over two years and analyze them line by line. Over two years, they read Luke and Acts. …

I just have to believe that what he told Fineman was a lie. That was the only conclusion I could come to. Then I talked to Fineman and he remembered talking to Bush during the primaries in New Hampshire. Howard asked him what selection of the Bible he’d read that day because the campaign was saying that Governor Bush read the Bible every day.

And we tracked down the transcript and Bush was totally defensive and it seemed to me from the transcript that he really didn’t read the Bible every day. He just said he did –- which is, like, a very weird thing to lie about.

‘Why Would The Anti-Christ Write Chorus Line?’ - noted at Making Light