ANGEL: They really like you, Mrs. Bush.

LAURA BUSH: And I really like them.

ANGEL: What is the book you're going to read to them?

LAURA BUSH: It's my favorite passage from my favorite book, children. The book is a Russian novel of the nineteenth century, and it's called The Brothers Karamazov, and the section I love most from this wonderful book is called "The Grand Inquisitor." Well, it's a little strong for live children, so I usually read them, oh, you know, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but I figured, being dead, you all command a broader view, and I hope you're going to like it. I think you will!

ANGEL: Who is the author?

LAURA BUSH: A reactionary Christian mystic epileptic compulsive gambler anti-Semitic Russian nationalist genius genius genius named Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky! Some people say he was the greatest novelist ever, and I agree with those people, he was! I love him, I really sort of am in love with him. I think he and I would have had a real understanding. He wasn't so nice, apparently, but he would have gotten me, I think, you know? What I go through, daily, in my heart. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was I think...sometimes I think the only man who could really understand me, and many, many women feel this way. At least in Texas we do. They broke a sword over his head, Dostoyevsky, then they tied him to a post and over and over they were going to shoot him for treason but they didn't, it was a sick joke, can you imagine children, how ghastly, knowing, just knowing you were going to die and then, and then...you open your eyes and you are still alive! Still alive! How horrible! To be still alive! If my husband had been in charge back then Dostoyevsky would've been dead for sure--my husband, he executed everyone they told him to, everyone they let him, I should say, my God, a hundred-and-something people and he never even missed his early, early bedtime, nor for that matter, from what I could see as I sat up reading and rereading Dostoyevsky, ever even stirred in his sleep! Notes From the Underground, The Possessed, The Idiot and he'd be all, like (she imitates a hideous bass snore:) KKKKKKKZZZZZZNNNNXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxxxxxxxx.

Well he was tired.

He's tired a lot.

From the gym.

(Little pause. She is lost in thought.)

ANGEL: Mrs. Bush?

LAURA BUSH: Well, anyway, in this section of The Brothers Karamazov, an atheist intellectual, Ivan, is telling his sweet, handsome young brother, Alyosha, about a poem he's made up, about Christ our Lord--well, not your Lord...you are probably Muslims?

ANGEL: They are.

LAURA BUSH: That's nice! There's nothing wrong with that! But this is a Christian story. Is that OK?

ANGEL: Children?

(They stand and respond. Bird music.)

LAURA BUSH: I'll take that for a yes! It's a universal tale! I bet it has been translated into Arabic, even into...whatever it is you are speaking now, um, bird music! Dostoyevsky's Ivan, arrogant like all intellectuals, and an atheist too--like most intellectuals he's an atheist. They're mostly all godless, even the ones think they're religious. The smarter they are the more godless, seems to me, but I don't really hold that against them like some do. I mean this'll stay between us, right, but don't get Lynne Cheney started, OK? Woo-OO!

Ivan tells his pretty young brother this story: Jesus Christ has come back to earth, back to the streets of Seville during the Spanish Inquisition, and the first thing He does, well, this will interest all of you, Christ immediately resurrects a dead little girl! Jesus says "Sit up," and the dead little girl does, sits up in her coffin, holding a white rose bouquet. But then the Grand Inquisitor, this 90-year-old Catholic bishop, he's passing by and sees this miracle, so he arrests Jesus Christ and throws him in a dark, filthy filthy dungeon, with, you know, old rotten straw and mouse pillies and, and the Grand Inquisitor says, "I know just who you are"--everyone recognizes Christ, somehow they all just know him! "I know just who you are and I am going to burn you at the stake in the morning as I have burned one hundred-and-something people already, and I didn't lose a nickel's worth of sleep over any of 'em." Some Christian, huh?

And what you will hear if you listen carefully, children, is how the Grand Inquisitor is really a godless old miscreant who has abandoned God for the devil, whom he calls "The Dread Spirit." But it's the devil no matter what fancy name you call him, and how he and his church, the Catholics--and that's another reason I can't read this to live American kids, is the Catholics are so friggin' touchy!--the Catholic Church wants to correct the mistakes the Grand Inquisitor says Jesus made when he was here the first time out. People want bread! They don't want God or freedom, they want bread! And they want to be free of free will! And they want everything to be uniform, universal everywhere, everyone just alike! This is what the Grand Inquisitor says. Jesus wanted people to be free, the Grand Inquisitor tells Jesus, but people can't manage freedom so the Church, and not just the Church but totalitarians of all sorts throughout history are here to enslave them, feed them, dictate to them. That's what the Grand Inquisitor offers, freedom from freedom! And he tells Jesus they will make a world, he and his fellow comrade totalitarians, he and his big government buddies, where hundreds of millions of people will be happy, fed slaves--they'll even be allowed to sin, a little, just so they feel happier being slaves. Whereas Christ would never manage more than a handful of followers, only a very few would be strong enough to be actual free people and follow Jesus, whereas the Grand Inquisitor would be leading hundreds of millions of happy sinful slaves, every one of whom is proud to call him or herself a Christian!

And because, because he was such a great writer and this is such great, great literature, when you read it sometimes with all the "do-ests" and "thinkests" and "wouldsts" and "thous" like in the Bible, and as you listen to the immensely persuasive powerful tongue Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky put in the mouth of the Grand Inquisitor, sometimes--even though I know the Inquisitor is the villain and Christ is the hero--Christ says nothing. And my eyes start to blur sometimes when I am reading this passage and I forget who is the villain and who is the hero and I think, you know, "Right ON Grand Inquisitor FOR GOD'S SAKE WOULD IT BE SO GODDAM TERRIBLE to FEED PEOPLE, AND AND IS IT REALLY WORTH IT STARVING KIDS SO THEY CAN WEAR PJs IN HEAVEN?"

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