The Bush Presidential Library

Ken AshfordBush & Co.Leave a Comment

The Bush Presidential Library?  The jokes write themselves.  But Arianna Huffington does a good job writing them too:

Comedy writers and lovers of the absurd all across America have a bounce in their step today, buoyed by news that President Bush is looking to raise half-a-billion dollars to build his legacy-burnishing presidential library.

The idea of Uncurious George building a $500 million shrine to his disastrous presidency is the political equivalent of a whoopee cushion; a veritable laff riot. The punchlines write themselves:

A George W. Bush Library? What’s it going to house, 100,000 copies of The Pet Goat — with some Shakespeares and a Camus thrown in for good measure?

Will there be a Heckuva Job Memorial Wing saluting W’s sterling political appointments? A Hurricane Katrina Photo Gallery, with each image housed in its own airplane window frame? An exact recreation of Dick Cheney’s secure undisclosed location (try to step inside and a recording of the Veep tells you to "Go fuck yourself!")?

Will visitors to the Iraq War Wing be handed rose-colored glasses before entering and having flowers thrown at their feet? Or will they don blinders as they stagger forward, sinking deeper into a man-made quagmire?

Will there be exhibits on waterboarding, illegal wiretapping, and the quaintness of the Geneva Conventions? A room devoted to the nobility and greatness of the Hanging Chad? A holographic image of Osama bin Laden (try and grab him and he slips right through your hands)? The Abu Gharib Game Room (must be over 18 to enter)?

At Bush 41’s Presidential Library, there is a twelve-foot piece of the Berlin Wall, which came down during his presidency. Will 43 try to recreate the finest moment of his presidency by bringing in a pile of Ground Zero rubble? This would be an interactive feature, allowing visitors to climb atop the pile, grab a megaphone, and take a crack at uttering the best unscripted line of his time in office: "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!"