On ABC’s This Week, President Bush said, “I have not read one book about me. … You know, I just — I feel uncomfortable reading about myself.” Bush said it is “weird to be reading books about yourself when you’re still trying to be the President,” and said that authors who comment on his administration before he’s out of office are “myopic.”
Stephanopoulos asked, “You don’t think there’s anything you could learn from these books in real-time?” Bush said: “No.”
Watch it:
Full transcript:
STEPHANOPOULOS: You said in your press conference last week, you joked about the books being written about your administration. Have you read any of them?
BUSH: No.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Why not?
BUSH: You know, I don’t know. I haven’t read the bad ones. I haven’t read the good ones. I guess it makes me — It’s kinda weird to be reading books about yourself when you’re still trying to be the President. I really haven’t.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How do you explain, though, how Bob Woodward, who has written three books –
BUSH: I didn’t read the book.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I know. But he’s written three books about your presidency –
BUSH: I didn’t read any of them.
STEPHANOPOULOS: None of them?
BUSH: George, I have not read one book about me. I read a lot of books this year. But not one about myself. You know, I just — I feel uncomfortable reading about myself. It’s — it’s hard for you to relate, I think. But my — I’m still in the midst of my presidency. And people are writing books about my presidency. It is so myopic in many ways. The true history of my presidency won’t be reflected until way after I’m gone.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You don’t think there’s anything you could learn from these books in real-time?
BUSH: No.
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