Bush's handlers claim his speeches are influenced by his knowledge of the great thinkers:
On the morning of June 14, on the way to a college commencement address in Columbus, Ohio, Bridgeland, director of USA Freedom Corps, briefed reporters on a speech President Bush was about to give. It would be, according to Bridgeland, based on the works of George Eliot, Alexis de Tocqueville, Cicero, Adam Smith, Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth, Pope John Paul II, Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington."And we've actually discussed [Aristotle's] 'Nicomachean Ethics' together," Bridgeland said, apparently with a straight face. "Yesterday, he was talking in the Oval Office about how Lincoln had completed or addressed the concern that the founding fathers had when -- Madison in particular, when he rejected Patrick Henry's request to include a declaration of rights in addition, because of the concern that future generations would not remember that there are duties associated with protecting the country we love so much. He made that very case yesterday in the Oval Office."
The article is worth reading for the comparison of Bush's speeches with the words of Jefferson, de Tocqueville, etc.
