The Bush Library: both a weapon and a defense.
Karl Rove is beavering away on the Bush Library to come, presumably lavishing his attention on the Fantastic Freedom Institute which is expected to resurrect Bush’s, shall we say, mottled image.
Now comes word of just how deeply Rove cares. The 9-11 Commission’s former Executive Director of the has been outed in “The Commission” by Philip Shenon as frequently chatting with Rove.
Philip Zelikow claims they discussed the Bush Library, but it’s all just so hard to remember. “I don’t recall ever having an extended conversation with him, and certainly not about politics or the commission.”
“The book says phone logs maintained by the commission’s executive assistant showed at least two calls from Rove to Zelikow’s office number in June 2003, and two more calls in September. During that time, the commission was in the midst of its fact-finding.Zelikow ordered the assistant to stop keeping phone records of his contacts with the White House, the book said, but the panel’s general counsel instructed her to ignore the order.The phone logs do not record Zelikow’s calls out, nor do they show calls on his cell phone, which he relied on for most outgoing calls. Records from the Government Accountability Office, which maintained some of the commission’s phone records, showed frequent calls from Zelikow to telephone numbers in area code 202, with the telephone prefix 4-5-6 — the prefix exclusive to the White House, the book says.”
As featureless as the land which bore him.
New Found Land 
America’s tradition of welcoming clapped out and out of power leaders remains strong.
Australia’s recently bounced Prime Minister John Howard is the latest beneficiary of our open door to the defeated, “welcomed into the conservatives’ mosh pit like an ageing rock star”according to the Sidney Morning Herald.
His tour is sponsored by major Bush donor Mel Sembler, and includes a trip to the Bush Library in College Station.
Howard also gives the “Irving Kristol address” to an American Enterprise Institute dinner in Washington. The event is perhaps America’s most distinguished award named for a former Trotskyite, and a goal for Christopher Hitchens to shoot for. The Herald describes this as a “nationally televised event,” true if you count CSPAN.
The saucy Aussie will join the long line of homeless former Bush allies in our political rest home. 
Former Spanish Prime Minster Aznar joined Rupert Murdoch’s board, and is installed at Georgetown University. There he teaches alongside former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, another bounced Bush buddy. 
The tanned former Stalinist was especially close to President Bush. 
The Long Courtship 
Ike’s Republican granddaughter has endorsed Barack Obama.
Susan Eisenhower got placed on the Washington Post op-ed page on a Saturday, and one suspects it will be portrayed as lacking the torchlight passing magic of the Caroline n’ Ted event last week.
Unmentioned is her husband Roald Sagdeev, Russian scientist and 
Hero of Socialist Labor.
Closed Vote 
The SMU Campus Daily reports that Southern Methodist University is wading into how it’s Methodist church parent decides if SMU can host the George W. Bush Presidential Library.
It may come down to hierarchy versus lay church members. The University is an entity of the church, and a regional church committee has signed off on the project. And the Bush Library foundation has gotten ten of the eleven bishops in the region to say the deal will go through.
And that others in the church can screw off.
But opponents are appealing to a regional body meeting in July. They claim church law subjects any decision by other bodies to debate and vote by what is known as the Jurisdictional Conference.
