What's Your Favorite Book

John Thune comes off looking pretty good in this interesting story about Senatorial (and one congressman's) reading habits.  I find some responses inspiring (McCain likes Hemmingway, Brownback likes the writings of a British abolitionist).  On the hand, Lisa Murkowski was deeply moved by Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don’t by Jim Collins.  Why?  It inspired her to fire her whole staff when she moved to DC.  That says something about her soul, and I am not sure it's good.  Still, she comes off better than Trent Lott, who can't think of any book besides his own.  I wonder if it has pictures?  And poor Jim Demint.  Captured by the siren song of Tom Friedman.  I guess Demint is beguiled by Freidman's omnipresent black crew neck shirt.  Here's what Thune said. Oh, and Senator, I recommend the Martin Gilbert biogrpahy of Churchill:

Some members of Congress struggled to come up with a book off the top of their heads. But Sen. John Thune (R.-S.C.) had no such problem.

“I really like William Manchester’s books on Winston Churchill,” he said. “I just read the one covering the period from 1932 to 1940.” [The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone 1932-1940.] His life is very inspiring to me. I think he had a profound courage when it comes to a politician who had to lead his nation during tumultuous times. I’ve loved and read a lot of Chuck Colson’s works over the years. I’m kind of a big fan of his. He had a book called How Now Shall We Live, and that one was very good. I enjoyed reading the book on John Adams by David McCullough. So those have been really good. Those are fascinating reads. Kind of an inside-the-locker-room look at the Founding Fathers and how the nation came into existence.”

“Those are just a couple off the top of my head I guess,” said Thune. “If I gave it some thought I might have a different answer.”

I guess, over all, what they used to say about scholarly Sen. Pat Moynihan was true: he had written more books than most Senators had read.  Hat tip on the whole thing to Joe K.