(guest blogged by Bill W.)

Bill Maher had Robert Draper, the author of the George W. Bush biography "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush" on his HBO show "Real Time."

From Draper we learn that Bush considers himself a lonely man who reads alot-- 87 books last year alone Draper swears--including newspapers (even though Bush lies about that and says he doesn't). The President also supposedly has a hidden intelligence, handicapped by his stubbornness borne of insecurity and a "scruffy" charm that includes a penchant for eating while he talks to people with food falling out of his mouth.

Of course, Maher had to have some fun with him over much of that.

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We also learn that after Bush "won the Texas Governorship, he said to an aide, 'The Blacks didn't come out for me like the Hispanics did, so they're not going to see much help from me,'" but according to Draper, that was just an example of Bush's dismissive petulance, not vengeful bigotry or anything like that.

You can see Draper is actually trying really hard to make Bush look good, or at least not so bad. He just doesn't have anything much to work with to that end.