Today, Elizabeth Bumiller reports in The New York Times that George W. Bush wasted time asking a potential Supreme Court nominee about how much he exercises:

When President Bush sat down in the White House residence last Thursday to interview a potential Supreme Court nominee, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, he asked him about the hardest decision he had ever made – and also how much he exercised.

“Well, I told him I ran three and a half miles a day,” Judge Wilkinson recalled in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “And I said my doctor recommends a lot of cross-training, but I said I didn’t want to do the elliptical and the bike and the treadmill.” The president, Judge Wilkinson said, “took umbrage at that,” and told his potential nominee that he should do the cross-training his doctor suggested.
“He thought I was well on my way to busting my knees,” said Judge Wilkinson, 60. “He warned me of impending doom.”

Bush may deride academic expertise, but he sure cares about how much people work out. According to the Washington Post, Larry Lindsey’s failure to get in shape was part of the reason Bush soured on Lindsey before forcing him out in 2002:

Lindsey, a former Federal Reserve governor, was at loggerheads with O’Neill as the administration devised a package of tax cuts that is to be a centerpiece of Bush’s legislative agenda next year. Bush blamed Lindsey for many of the administration’s economic missteps in recent months and even complained privately about his failure to exercise, aides said.

Looks like the big tent isn’t big enough for all of the overweight people out there. And they say the administration looks like America…