The Bush Library

[12AX7]

Bush was never stupid enough to ride in an open car through the downtown of a major city.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Too bad Saint Ronnie was stupid enough to walk from a building to his limo.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

[12AX7]

Oh, and no quality Bush library would be complete without an interactive shoe-dodging section.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

I live about 10 miles from SMU and plan on going some day. Perhaps this summer.

 

[Brown]

So far, the big news is that the five living US presidents plan to be there at the opening, smiling and being gracious. Presidential attendance is supposed to be a "tradition."

Some are concerned that the Library will try to paint failures as successes, and will overtly try to re-write history. Although that might turn out to be correct, the short-on-details preliminary reports suggest that the Library will focus upon the future (rather than the past) and will center upon Little Bush's decisions (rather than, say, his achievements). In other words, there might actually be an attempt to have an even-handed treatment of the times.

It has also been observed that preliminary reports include no mention of how certain prominent events will be handled by the Library, leading some expect that such events will be glossed over or ignored completely. This also may turn out to be correct, but let's wait for the opening and see what the Library actually does.

 

[Brown]

Well, the current and former presidents were all very gracious, although very few specifics or major accomplishments were mentioned. Former President Jimmy Carter found some nice words to say (according to the AP):

President Jimmy Carter praised Bush for his role in helping secure peace between North and South Sudan in 2005 and his approval of expanded aid to the nations of Africa. "Mr. President let me say that I am filled with admiration for you and deep gratitude for you about the great contributions you've made to the most needy people on earth," Carter said.

Sad to say, these contributions, like Africa in general, are largely absent in North American consciousness. They have been overshadowed by other things.

In the past few days, there has been some discussion of the Bush legacy, and a struggle to identify any accomplishments of his eight years. Some have listed educational reform as a Bush accomplishment (see, e.g., Some Good Things George W. Bush Did), but there is far-from-universal agreement that the overall effect has been positive. Medicare reform is listed as a plus, but the financial boons to drug companies (among other things) have tainted it. Bush had a program for housing for the poor that was apparently a success ... but who knew?

And then there were the failures that are passed off as some sort of almost-achievements: an attempt to reform immigration, for example. NBC News mentions an effort to rein in entitlements, by which they meant the attempt to effectively eliminate Social Security and replace it with a "plan" that was just plain stupid on so many levels.

So the Little Bush presidency may have had some successes, but it is not known for them. It's failures were far bigger, as were its outright, boneheaded disasters.

One positive story, in my judgment, is that the history in the Bush Library is supposed to be honest. The museum is not supposed to be a spin-zone dedicated to the wonderfulness of the man, nor is it to be a monument that makes him out to be an incompetent boob or a moral monster. From The Shriners:

The creation of every new presidential library involves negotiations over an agreement—a treaty—between the federal government and the former president and his representatives. Called a Joint Use Agreement, the contract divides up responsibility for the space at the library between the private presidential foundation, which is usually dedicated to promoting the positive legacy of a president, and the American people. Areas controlled by the private presidential foundation, such as the impressive Air Force One Pavilion at the Reagan Library, can have partisan events such as Republican presidential debates. Those spaces controlled by the National Archives on behalf of the American people, however, are legally mandated to be nonpartisan.
...
If the final agreement is anything like the treaty governing the Nixon Library, the National Archives has veto power on your behalf over all exhibits and programs at this new presidential library.

The mention of the Nixon Library is especially noteworthy, especially in light of the following:

Before the National Archives took over in 2007, nearly 200,000 students had been taught that the Democrats used Watergate to overturn the electoral result of 1972 and that Richard Nixon did nothing that presidents before him had not done; the only difference was that he got caught.

 

[mikedenk]

- Baseless war crime accusations.
- Flirtations with trutherism.
- Vagina jokes that were stale in 6th grade.

Yep, looks like it's Bush Derangement Syndrome time again. The only thing missing is a leftist shrieking about all the oil we plundered in Iraq.

I thought this article was interesting. Amazingly, after 8+ years of an all-out liberal media assault on Bush, followed by five-odd years of liberal media fellatio on Obama, their approval ratings are the same. Stupid Americans!



I do. GW certainly wasn't a great president, but it was nice to have a leader with some class. And some balls.

 

[Dr. Keith]

I live about 10 miles from SMU and plan on going some day. Perhaps this summer.

I will likely do the same.

If you find yourself in College Station I can recommend the Elder's Museum and Library. Predictably it focuses a lot on his pre-presidential career: military service, diplomat, CIA, VP, etc. I really enjoyed going through there with my family.

I can't help but think the Younger's library will be less . . . yeah, just less. Less interesting, less engaging, less informative. Just less.

It does remind me that I still need to get my kids over to the LBJ. We went to the new Bullock museum in Austin, and it was pretty nice.

Of course, my favorite museum in the state is the Nimitz. Be sure to go when the weather is nice enough to watch the gun and flame thrower demo.

Yeah, we'll go to the Younger's library, but not with high hopes. Just something to do while waiting until the Perot museum is a bit less crowded . . .

 

[Dr. Keith]

And some balls.

Yes, but Cheney never let him hold them.

 

[Brown]

If you find yourself in College Station I can recommend the Elder's Museum and Library. Predictably it focuses a lot on his pre-presidential career: military service, diplomat, CIA, VP, etc. I really enjoyed going through there with my family.

I can't help but think the Younger's library will be less . . . yeah, just less. Less interesting, less engaging, less informative. Just less.

Elder Bush had a fantastic resume before being president. The pre-presidential exhibits could be an almost as interesting as the presidential exhibits.

 

[applecorped]

Too bad Saint Ronnie was stupid enough to walk from a building to his limo.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

And yet Ronnie survived.

 

[applecorped]

- Baseless war crime accusations.
- Flirtations with trutherism.
- Vagina jokes that were stale in 6th grade.

Yep, looks like it's Bush Derangement Syndrome time again. The only thing missing is a leftist shrieking about all the oil we plundered in Iraq.

I thought this article was interesting. Amazingly, after 8+ years of an all-out liberal media assault on Bush, followed by five-odd years of liberal media fellatio on Obama, their approval ratings are the same. Stupid Americans!

View attachment 28004

I do. GW certainly wasn't a great president, but it was nice to have a leader with some class. And some balls.

+1

 

[Regnad Kcin]

- Baseless war crime accusations.
- Flirtations with trutherism.
- Vagina jokes that were stale in 6th grade.

Yep, looks like it's Bush Derangement Syndrome time again. The only thing missing is a leftist shrieking about all the oil we plundered in Iraq.

I thought this article was interesting. Amazingly, after 8+ years of an all-out liberal media assault on Bush, followed by five-odd years of liberal media fellatio on Obama, their approval ratings are the same. Stupid Americans!

View attachment 28004

I do. GW certainly wasn't a great president, but it was nice to have a leader with some class. And some balls.

Snort.

 

[Brown]

Well, reports are starting to come in. If the reports are right (and that is a big if), then some of the omissions are pretty serious, if the museum is indeed going to be taken as a serious source for educators and historians.

Apparently there is no exhibit in the museum devoted to Iraq. Say NBC News reporters:

What's striking for those of us who have been able to tour the new Bush library and museum is that there is no dedicated section on Iraq; instead, the war is discussed as part of the "global war on terror."

And according to "The Daily Show," visitors are allowed to "vote" whether Saddam posed a threat sufficiently imposing to justify the invasion; and if they vote "no," a video of Little Bush comes on explaining that they were wrong.

It is unknown whether there is an exhibit devoted to cooked intelligence that led to Bush's choice, or the various falsehoods that were presented to the public as undisputed fact. My guess is that there is no such exhibit.

The NBC News report goes on:

Vice President Dick Cheney and top political strategist Karl Rove have almost no presence in the library, despite being two of the most consequential actors in the Bush administration.

There is no clear word yet whether there is an exhibit that mentions (never mind being devoted to) the issue of torture. There is no word whether exhibits mention Terri Schiavo or Harriet Meirs. It's unknown how the Katrina mess is addressed, or whether Brownie really did a heckuva job. There has been no report about whether the PDB of August 2001 will be mentioned, or whether there will be any display of the children's book Bush held for five to seven minutes after being told the country was under attack, or the whether the decisions to let bin Laden get away were correct, or whether it will even be mentioned that Bush tried to stymie an investigation into the al Qaeda attack.

All we have are preliminary reports that some of the pretty significant events of those years are just being ignored or downplayed, and that some of the poor judgments are being presented as better than they actually were. National Archives oversight or not, some people who have seen it are already saying that the museum is devoted to whitewash and revisionism.

My feeling is that it is still too early to tell.

 

[Brown]

In a story crammed with irony, Senator Barbara Boxer has awarded her inaugural Climate Hero Award to George W. Bush’s presidential library. The library, it seems, promotes energy conservation and environmentally friendly design, even though the man after whom it is named did not.

And the library is now closed. Due to the shutdown.

 

[Spindrift]

In a story crammed with irony, Senator Barbara Boxer has awarded her inaugural Climate Hero Award to George W. Bush’s presidential library. The library, it seems, promotes energy conservation and environmentally friendly design, even though the man after whom it is named did not.

And the library is now closed. Due to the shutdown.

Is that any more ironic than the George W. Bush library itself?