Dyslexic Bush can't read but he punishes children who can't with "No Child Left Behind"

Dyslexic Bush can: "George W. Bush doesn’t read. “I know he doesn’t read,” one White House staffer told columnist Sidney Blumenthal, who wrote it in The Guardian on April 15th of this year. In fact, in an interview with Brit Hume, Bush admitted that he does not read the newspapers, nor does he read documents prepared for him daily called “President’s Daily Briefs.” Instead, he prefers to have them interpreted and encapsulated for him by his staff, usually Condoleezza Rice or Andrew Card.

Bush himself told Hume, “I glance at the headlines just to kind of [get] a flavor for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories.”

The president related to Hume, “I get briefed by people who have probably read the news themselves.” The president further stated that Andrew Card and Condoleezza Rice, on the other hand, get the news “directly from the participants on the world stage.”

Bush continued to Hume, “I appreciate people’s opinions, but I’m more interested in news. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world.”

Of course Democrats would argue that Rice and Card are not necessarily “objective sources.” But why doesn’t the president read? Some have speculated that he has dyslexia. Certainly, it would fit. People with dyslexia generally dislike reading because it is hard work for them. Dyslexia tends to run in families, and the Bush family has been open about George’s brother Neil having it. Further, people with dyslexia often have language processing problems of the type President Bush displays. Making up words, confusing first and last syllables, using malapropisms and similar sounding words, like “preservation” for “perseverance,” are all common in people with dyslexia."

By Elaine Kitchel, an educator and research scientist. She holds a Master’s degree in Special Education and has taught special students, including dyslexics, for nearly thirty years. Reprinted from Intervention Magazine. Posted Monday, June 21, 2004