Steven Radice sent this piece to Creative Loafing after reading the comments in "Speaking of Iraq" by Unitarian minister John Burciaga, who married Radice and his wife. His vision for the Bush library may be humorous in tone, but Radice takes the Iraq issue very seriously: "I've been opposed to W. and the war since the beginning, and today I have a son serving in Taji, Iraq with the Florida National Guard, which brings a conceptual topic to a very real level."
The recent books on Bush administration bungling in Iraq, Afghanistan and New Orleans started me thinking about what shape the George W. Bush Presidential Library might eventually take. And with yesterday's election marking W's final campaign, only two lame-duck years remain before work begins in earnest on the final design.
Ideally, the structure would reflect the most significant national and international situations faced by the president in his two terms. If asked for preliminary design ideas, I would use a "house" motif, reflecting Mr. Bush's down-home style. It might be organized as follows:
We enter through the front lobby, which, of course, is dedicated to the many lobbyists who have proven so influential. Jack Abramoff is prominently featured, as are the oil and gas industry lobbyists whose portraits, however, are unnamed and turned to the wall. Leaving the lobby, we enter the Karl Rove Red Room, where Karl's pithy sayings over the years like "flip-flop" and "cut and run" have been artfully inscribed on the walls. Leaving from the only door on the far right, we descend to the basement exhibit dedicated to great national events of the Bush years. The basement is flooded, of course, the walls coated with a mud-like paint called "Brownie" specially created for the library.
Returning upstairs we enter a room decorated as a baby's nursery. This is the "Debt Room," reflecting the national deficit run up during the Bush administration that our children's children will still be paying for years from now. We then move across the hall to the Diplomacy Room, structured as a small fitness center where punching bags and treadmills are decorated in the national flags of countries who did not appreciate Mr. Bush's calming touch. The adjoining room is for the kids, featuring a petting zoo with only one type of animal: fat cats.
Across the hall there's a utility room outfitted with faux washer/dryer, ironing board and drying rack. Access to this room is closely guarded, however, as this is where eight years of Bush administration dirty laundry is stored. Fortunately, the door is hermetically sealed to keep odors from circulating through the library.
The master bedroom suite offers a stark contrast with what one might expect in, say, the Clinton Library (cluttered bedroom, multiple beds, soiled dresses). The Bush suite is starkly empty: no furniture, mattresses, clothing or toys of any kind. "Passionless Conservatism" is the theme called for in my design.
The kitchen is, of course, central to any home built with family values in mind. This kitchen, however, is unique in that the expensive stove and microwave oven automatically turn off part of the way through cooking, thus ensuring that any product of the library's kitchen comes out half-baked. Middle Eastern stews are a particular specialty of the chef-in-chief.
The centerpiece of the Library is, of course, the Iraq "Rec" Room. Complete with stone walls, the room shows examples of progress in Iraq, including model-sized hospitals, schools and factories, all of which have at least one wall blown in. The centerpiece of this room is the smoldering wreck of a U.S. Army Humvee, with special heavy-duty armor still back-ordered. We then enter a final room, unfinished for now. This would be a perfect interim spot for the War on Terror and Afghanistan exhibits.
Unfortunately, I have no credentials or experience for the job, but this failing seems consistent with many of the Bush friends put in high places during his administration, so I think I might just be getting a call two short years from now. What a happy day that will be!
This article appears in Nov 8-14, 2006.