The best and worst thing that could’ve happened to George W. Bush is leaving office. On one hand, he gets to hang out at his ranch all day, avoid the media, play with his dog, stay away from shoe-throwing foreigners. On the other hand, former staffers, can finally start coming out and talking about the odd things that went on in the White House during those long eight years.

One of those odd things happens to be objections that White House staffers had towards the consideration of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling for a Presidential Medal of Freedom. According to Think Progress’s review of Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer’s new book, Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor, key officials in Bush’s administration were against Rowling’s consideration because they felt that she “encouraged witchcraft.” J.K. Rowling never ended up receiving the award.

Stories like this seem so unreal to me. Sure, we can joke about how Bush and his friends don’t believe in dinosaurs and think that God told them to bomb Iraq, but apparently things were a lot worse than that. They actually believed (still do, I imagine) in witchcraft enough to hate a writer for writing about it. Let me say that again. PEOPLE WHO WORKED AT THE WHITE HOUSE BELIEVED IN WITCHCRAFT WHILE WORKING THERE. Not 30 years later when they’re all old and crazy. And not some half-loony janitor that worked in the basement. Key staffers. Makes a dude trying to get everyone Health Care seem a lot less evil, huh?