I like Arianna Huffington’s comment on this: “What’s it going to house, 100,000 copies of The Pet Goat?”
He may be a certified lame duck now, but President Bush and his truest believers are about to launch their final campaign – an eye-popping, half-billion-dollar drive for the Bush presidential library.
Eager to begin refurbishing his tattered legacy, the President hopes to raise $500 million to build his library and a think tank at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Bush lived in Dallas until he was elected governor of Texas in 1995.
Bush sources with direct knowledge of library plans told the Daily News that SMU and Bush fund-raisers hope to get half of the half billion from what they call “megadonations” of $10 million to $20 million a pop.
Bush loyalists have already identified wealthy heiresses, Arab nations and captains of industry as potential “mega” donors and are pressing for a formal site announcement – now expected early in the new year.
“You can’t ask people in Dallas for $20 million until they can be sure the library won’t be in Waco,” one Bush source noted.
There’s something telling about this quote. Sounds like one day we’ll have two history books; real history and Bush’s History.
“It’s so much bigger than anything that’s been tried before. But the more you have, the more influence [on history] you can exert.”
Too bad that half billion couldn’t be raised to support libraries around the country that have been cutting hours and not buying new books due to budget cuts. Now that would be a legacy to be proud of.
He wants $30,000 just for “See Spot Run”
Oh god.. I don’t like the man, but that fake image with the book is just annoying by now…
Why is that Bush reminds me of Nero?
I’ve always wondered what half a billions dollars worth of colouring books look like
I almost puked when I heard Bush is looking for a house not even 5 minutes from my house here in Highland Park. Now I have to watch wait in traffic for he and a parade of secret service goons cart his ass to Whole Foods.
GEEZ….get over your anti Bush bias. It gets very, very old. Every President raises money for their Presidential library. You didn’t have an issue with the Clinton Presidential library in Little Rock, built for approximately $165 million, why should you have an issue now?
First of all- I do not want one cent of my or any other person’s tax dollars going to support the G. W. Bush ego trip. Secondly, it seems to have gotten to the point where presidents think that you are automatically entitled to build your own library when what they should do is just donate their papers to the library of congress like the majority of their predecessors and be done with it.
The most pressing question though: When every document from his administration is either shredded or classified, what is he going to put in his library to begin with?
OJ’s “If I Had Done It”?
#6: A half billion is a tad more than $165M. Perhaps he’ll have a marble gallery with photos and paintings of all the servicemen and women who died in his war. And can’t forget the glorious Halliburton wing.
And for what it’s worth, I do have a problem with spending that kind of money for Clinton’s or any president’s library. It’s a waste of money (albeit private) that could be spent on helping people instead of propping up the egos of rulers.
Build the library and then burn it. Then his library would match his legacy.
Bush “think tank”? Like brining Rove’s brain in a bell jar?
#6 – “GEEZ….get over your anti Hitler bias. It gets very, very old. Every Fuehrer kills a few million now and then. You didn’t have an issue with Churchill exterminating a half dozen squirrels in his vegetable garden, why should you have an issue now?”
That’s what your message sounds like. Enjoy your slavering Bu$hCo worship. And I agree with #9, I don’t think ANY president deserves to spend millions on monuments to their own egos.
#11.
I’d be happy to harvest it for the library.
I can see the title on the jar. “Brain of asshole”.
Hey maybe they can call the library “Library of asshole coward”
In the picture, did anyone notice whats on the wall behind Bush?
14. Funny piece John.
#14 – LOL that video was awesome. “Gimme a VISOR.” 🙂
9. Agreed.
14. Ha!
Presidential Libraries.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/liblinks.html
I once serendipitously visited the Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda – 15 minutes from Disneyland. This massive architectural edifice lies right next to Nixon’s original and very modest boyhood home. It seems a little out of place in a neighborhood that includes chickens and such right across the road. What would have been the reaction way back when, if they all could have been told what was to be built next door?
RBG
That was a great a great comic video. He sounds and acts just like Bush, wow.
Back to the article…… With $500M, I would ask for a pyramid or a sphynx instead of a regular old library. At least he will be remembered as one with a creative memorial instead of the one that plundered the US treasury and made the world despise americans for centuries.
That’s funny. Why can’t Kerry tell Bush jokes like that?
Can he even read?
#15 I bet he doesn’t know what that is. At the very least he would like to completely rewrite it.
Maybe if it were upside down?
#12
Beautifully put, man.
Chris: Sadly, due to me loosing my psychic powers last week, I didn’t realise the people on this forum “didn’t have an issue with the Clinton Presidential library”. I’d have assumed that people would consider the situations to be similarly scandalous.
Even if – when I was 14 years old, all those years ago – I was an advocate of the Clinton Presidential Library, do you really suppose that means I couldn’t have a different opinion now, in 2006? I’m quite sure you don’t, and would agree that you’ve asked a most ludicrous question.
You say: “GEEZ….get over your anti Bush bias.” I say there’s no bias involved. I would criticise any individual who considered it reasonable to raise donations – (ask yourself what Bush will offer in exchange) – to build a half billion dollar monument to himself.
But, incidentally, this just happens to be a man who’s persistently abused his position, and has allowed hundreds of thousand of soldiers, firemen, and civilians from various countries to die – for his own personal interests.
If Bush finds it so easy to raise that kind of cash, why doesn’t he spend it on something worthwhile, like housing 500,000 homeless Americans? (I do have the answer to that question).
I highly suspect Bush and his friends will put up the money themselves – After all, $500,000,000 is just pocket money to them.
Well, hopefully the building will be a better addition to the landscape than Clinton’s “Mobile Home To the Future”
http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/
OK, here’s a trivia question: Who killed more Americans:
(1) the hijackers on 09/11/01
(2) Saddam Hussein
(3) George Bush
Well, as a guy who VOTED for him, I must admit the answer is #3. Answer 3 is correct because he has sent more patriotic Americans to their death in his illegal little adventure in Iraq (thinly disguised as an anti-terrorism measure) than either the hijackers or Saddam. Answer 2 is incorrect because he killed Iraqis, no Americans.
SO, I’d say the major thing that his library ought to include would be photos and bios of those he sent to their deaths in Iraq.
Of course, this begs the question: In the blog photo, note that the child and Bushie are reading the same book. Bush’s copy is UPSIDE DOWN! So, why should we build a library to honor a guy who can’t even read? (Wasn’t he the same buffoon whose picture was widely circulated looking into a set of binoculars with the lens caps on?
Hernando
a life-long Republican (and not too proud of it)
#15 Geez, it’s just a goddamn piece of paper.
The Bush library won’t rewrite history any more than the Clinton library does. And it will probably look a lot nicer too.
And btw, the “stupid’ jokes are getting old. I am not a Bush fanboy myself, but there’s so much more you can attack the guy over.
David K, the “btw, the ‘stupid’ jokes are getting old” comments are getting old
#26, I wonder if the toilet paper in the GWB Library’s public restrooms will have the text of the Constitution printed on it.
#6 – GEEZ….get over your anti Bush bias. It gets very, very old. Every President raises money for their Presidential library. You didn’t have an issue with the Clinton Presidential library in Little Rock, built for approximately $165 million, why should you have an issue now?
Comment by Chris — 11/28/2006 @ 11:25 am
blah blah blah Clinton blah blah blah Clinton… The horse is dead. Stop beating it. We slam Bush because he is a corrupt silver spoon baby and a nepotistic fuck who never earned a damn thing in his life… And, he’s a draft dodger who can’t even point to being a Rhodes Scholar as an excuse.
He’s a sorry excuse for a president… and he broke the country we’ve all called home for over 230 years.
But mostly, he’s STILL IN OFFICE and thus still very dangerous.