George W.: Not just another pretty face, you know.

There goes that George Bush again -- immersing himself in deep thought and literature:

President George W. Bush is spending part of his Christmas holiday reading about the post-presidential years of Theodore Roosevelt and the lives of U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Bush was reading "When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After the White House," by Patricia O'Toole, and "Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground," by Robert Kaplan while on holiday at his Texas ranch, said White House spokesman Trent Duffy.

And it seems like only yesterday that he was zipping his way through the works of Cicero and de Tocqueville:

The most surprising convert to the ranks of the highbrow is Bush, who has evolved from calling the Greeks ``Grecians'' to reading the Greeks himself. An official recently told reporters that Bush's influences included Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, along with Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith and Cicero.

Apparently, we really have misunderestimated the man. Shame on us.

AFTERSNARK: Commenter "Brad" draws our attention to the intellectual juggernaut that is Commander Chimpy. I think I just wet myself.