(See what happens when I don't blog all afternoon? I write lame headlines.)
It's actually kind of true, though. It turns out George W. Bush lifted sections of previously released books about his presidency and used them in his memoir. Ryan Grim:
Crown Publishing ... got a mash-up of worn-out anecdotes from previously published memoirs written by his subordinates, from which Bush lifts quotes word for word, passing them off as his own recollections. He took equal license in lifting from nonfiction books about his presidency or newspaper or magazine articles from the time. Far from shedding light on how the president approached the crucial "decision points" of his presidency, the clip jobs illuminate something shallower and less surprising about Bush's character: He's too lazy to write his own memoir.
Bush, on his book tour, makes much of the fact that he largely wrote the book himself, guffawing that critics who suspected he didn't know how to read are now getting a comeuppance. Not only does Bush know how to read, it turns out, he knows how to Google, too. Or his assistant does.
And does it really matter? Not to the four people who still admire him, I'm sure. Seriously, this is the new paradigm in conservative leadership. Dumbstupid is acceptable -- in fact, it's desirable. Sarah Palin is making a buttpile of cash in the pursuit of passing off dumbstupid as excellence.