Scraping to fill the shelves of the Bush library: By Derrick Z. Jackson

[kpete]

Scraping to fill the shelves of the Bush library
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist | May 10, 2006

Bush himself is already telling the story that will be told. In January, he told CBS's Bob Schieffer, ''I would like to leave behind a legacy or a think tank, a place for people to talk about freedom and liberty and the de Tocqueville model, what de Tocqueville saw in America."

The joke will be on the winner. If this library is stocked the way Bush stuck it to the people, this is going to be the most empty $200 million library in the world. It will be unique because the most interesting story of the Bush administration is how it did as much as possible without visibility.

...................

In all fairness, we should grant Bush some wall space for photos that show him being the face of resolve in the immediate days after 9/11. But we also know for sure that we will see no photos of Abu Ghraib, no touching thanks from either the family of Pat Tillman or the surviving relatives of the at least 30,000 Iraqi civilians killed in our invasion and occupation.

De Tocqueville wrote that ''there is a prodigious force in the expression of the will of a whole people. When it is uncovered in broad daylight, the very imagination of those who would wish to struggle against it is overwhelmed." In the Bush library, you will certainly see no monuments to his struggles against the will of the people, not to the hanging chads of 2000, nor to his claim that he has the authority to ignore more than 750 laws that have been passed since 2000, a fact recently uncovered by the Globe.

Most libraries have books. The last one on the shelves of Bush's will be one from de Tocqueville.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/05/10/scraping_to_fill_the_shelves_of_the_bush_library/

[peekaloo]

1. A freedom and liberty chat room? Ah, for the nostalgic I suppose.

:banghead:

[rodeodance]

2. HOw does this contrast with the Clinton, or Carter library? anyone know?

[mark11727]

3. And the centerpiece will be, surrounded by bulletproof glass...

The Pet Goat

:evilgrin:

[0007]

4. I'm sure the comics will find something hilarious to take the edge

of loneliness off the lack of worthwhile books.

But then there are the story tellers. Lot's of 'em that will make junior look somewhat reasonable.

[Kolesar]

5. Ought I read De Tocqueville?

His name comes up *a lot* in the last few years in the nerd land of editorials and Cspan.
(I'm recommending this one.)

[Loge23]

6. AbbyNormal's brain?

How about an exhibit of the brains from Mel Brooks "Frankenstein"?
They could extract the peanut monkey brain from w as the centerpiece.
Rove's blackened brain would be nice...
Cheney's mechanical substitute...
We could go on and on!

[rodeodance]

7. ask would it "feature redacted manuscripts,"?

.....Most presidential libraries have continuous multimedia centers, but what videos would this one show? Not the tapes where Cheney says, ''There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." Not Colin Powell's presentation on Saddam's alleged weapons at the United Nations where he said, ''Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions." Not that great post-invasion assertion by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about finding the weapons of mass destruction: ''We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."

Lots of libraries have a rare-manuscript section. This one at best would feature redacted manuscripts, such as: the 2003 Environmental Protection Agency report about global warming where the administration deleted the part that pinned warming on cars and industry; the 2003 Health and Human Services report on healthcare to people of color that deleted the words ''disparities" and ''inequality" from a first draft; and the Department of Justice report on perceptions of racism on its staff where half of the 186 pages were blacked out. Don't even think about notes from Cheney's Energy Task Force.

[electropop]

8. A "think tank?" That would be harder to fill than a Hummer's gas tank

at $3.50 a gallon. One needs ideas and intelligent people to fil a think tank, and there are none on the right.

[shain from kane]

9. Highlights: Pictures on the wall "Big Fish that I Have Caught". n/t

[The Stranger]

10. Under the spreading chestnut tree,

I sold you and you sold me,
There lie they and here lie we,
Under the spreading chestnut tree.