Reading Mastery - Level 2 Storybook 1 (Reading Mastery: Rainbow Edition)

I've never read this book, being an adult and not having children. This is really a review of the controversy over Bush's reading of it for seven minutes after being informed of the second WTC attack. People have accused him of indecisiveness for this. I'm not a fan of the Bush administration or Republicans in general, but this particular bit of criticism is contemptibly foolish. Seven minutes is no time at all; we are talking about a human being (more or less), not a supercomputer. Even in the event of nuclear war, thinking about the problem for seven minutes would be unlikely to make any difference at all. I think the real problem is that Bush is too decisive; he doesn't deliberate nearly enough before making up his mind. Criticizing him for his reading of this book is childish, immature, illogical, and ultimately counter-productive; one's time would be better spent criticizing him for subverting the Constitution or for starting an unjust and illegal war by lying to the American people.

This is the stuff that makes great men so great. Should be a required reading for leaders of men. Presidential material. I found it so rich and powerful that I had to take seven minutes to reflect and decide what to do next.

The biggest claim to fame of this book is that it is the book from which President Bush famously read the story "The Pet Goat" on the morning of September 11th, 2001.

If you look up "The Pet Goat" on Wikipedia, there is a nice picture of George W. Bush holding the book, shortly after then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card informed the President that America was under attack.

I really like this book a lot. Once I was reading this book with some short friends of mine. (These friends are people, and they're not as tall as me.) I'm sorry to say, though, my friend Andy came into the room while I was reading this VERY VERY GOOD book and he interrupted me, which was really sort of rude of him. (I said very very good like that because that will impress my friend Laura -- who is a girl and also my wife, because I got married to her like I did because I am not gay and neither is she, and the constitution says I can marry a girl -- because she is a librarian, which means, mostly, that she really really likes books a LOT, even more than me, I mean.) Well, after my friend Andy came in and interrupted me, I still kept reading this book because one, I know when I have a good book in my hands (and this is a stupendous book, something pretty good, I mean) and then there's the second reason I kept reading -- I did not want to alarm my short friends (they were children, meaning that they aren't adult people yet, they're pre-adults, I like to say) by putting the book down and going to play a video game or whatever it was Andy wanted me to do. Then I saw my friend Condi in the doorway (Condi is also a girl, but not my wife) and she waved at me, and I thought, Condi looks good in blue. She looks very, you know, patriotic. But then finally I had to go, and I never got back to the book, but after I retire from my job, or when I go on vacation in a couple days (it's always only a couple days away until I go on vacation, sort of), well then I will finally sit down and read this book from START to FINISH. (To be honest, I don't always, always read things from start to finish. Condi will tell you about that.)