George W. Bush's presidential liabrary opens today on the SMU campus in Dallas. It's architecturally identical to an artist's rendering of Orwell's Ministry of Truth in 1984.
And devoted to the same purpose. It's also, at over a quarter million square feet, the largest presidential library (Herbert Hoover's is the smallest at 66K sq. ft.), and the most expensive. Franklin Roosevelt's was the cheapest, because architects adapted it from some sort of sketch the president drew of a rustic cottage.
The Guardian's (UK) preview of the gala opening tells us Visitors to his official library, which opens in Dallas on Thursday, will be presented with the interactive exhibit
asking them to second guess four key moments in his presidency: removing Saddam Hussein, the US army "surge" in Iraq, bailing out the banks and responding to hurricane Katrina.
How about you, Mr. Pat Answers of Bugle Call, Idaho? Would you have "gone in there in the first place?" or "left brutal dictator Saddam in place to practice his brutal dictatorship?" And once "in there," would you have decided to "pull out now?" or "stay in there and surge, and get the job done?" I tell you, it's hard work, being the decider. Decisions, decisions.
As you can tell, the purpose of all this is to revise and rehabilitate Dubya's reputation, and apparently it's working. 47 Percent of us now think Dubya was an OK prez (that number again!), while 50 percent still think he was an unqualified mess, and three percent are comma toes.
No matter how hard they work at it, though, the revisers are having a hard time coming up with an actual accomplishment or two to recall from the boy king's eight years, so they pull out that old chestnut, "He kept us safe from the terrorists." Yup. Guess he did.*
*After 9/11, of course. This is like saying the Soviets had a great safety record for their nuclear power program, except for Chernobyl.
3 comments:
He fought AIDS in Africa, which is the only good thing I can think of that he did.
I think he might have strengthened the food stamp program, too, which is called SNAP now.
it's a good thing he strengthened food stamps, since he certainly strengthened the need for them.
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