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Nothing Says Policy Like Something From Our Oven 

The George W. Bush Presidential Library shock and awe media tour continues, with Politico the latest recipient of  access to the former President’s minions.  There we learn that the Definitely-Not-To-Be-Named-Freedom Institute attached to the Library will be so much more than the usual presidential scholar holding tank.

In the Bush Institute’s search for something to do, the latest scheme floated is for it to become the George W. Bush Test Kitchen, “to run demonstration tests or pilot projects based on ideas generated from there. ”

George W. Bush Foundation President Mark Langdale explains its thrust into the future:

“That’s a little bit different than what other presidential libraries have done, and it’s a little bit different than defending the record…By the time the Institute is focusing on a problem, there’ll be new information and new perspectives shaping the policy debate, beyond what happened in the Bush administration.”

Why-ever we should turn for fresh ideas to these has-bins is unclear.

Distant Learning  

The Ronald Reagan Library’s swanky new “Air Force One Discovery Center” recreating Reagan’s Island hopping holiday in Grenada has received the super glamorous  THEA Award for Learning Experience from industry titans of the Themed Entertainment Association.

  The TEA-ists love how it draws in the youngsters.

“Here each plays a role in responding to a rapidly unfolding crisis that seems all too real. The result is an innovative, involving and highly personal experience of presidential decision making that achieves a highly successful educational experience with the enthusiasm of compelling role playing entertainment. The kids are completely engaged.“

The kids do get some learnin’, but while it “seems all too real” it doesn’t have much to do with reality.

The Reagan Discovery Center takes school children and plunks them down in an Oval Office recreation  [steps away from yet another replica Oval Office], Air Force One [right next to an actual plane] ,  and the command post of the USS Ronald Reagan, which did not exist at the time of the invasion.

Entirely disappeared from the exhibit is the unprecedented military censorship of the invasion, which allowed the Reagan Administration freedom to tell the story first their way. Also missing are the plucky American medical students, whose mythical danger of becoming “hostages” was the lead public explanation for the invasion. Enjoy the show!

Freedom’s Ferment 

James Traub’s New York Times Magazine piece this Sunday on the Bush Library & Freedom Institute is Nostradamus-like in scope, explaining the past even as it for-tells our dark Bushie future.

Traub reviews the failed efforts by Southern Methodist University faculty and others to stop Bush from planting his autonomous institute on the SMU campus and giving the University no say in its direction or governance. The Institute will be a stand alone entity vaguely associated with the Bush Library, but controlled by the Bush Foundation. Other presidential branding opportunities have at least made gestures towards academic sensibilities, but SMU’s President Gerald Turner makes the Bush people sound rather desperate that they could get a hearing in a real academic setting;

“They wanted to make sure that all points of view, including their own point of view, have a chance to be expressed.”

Bush crony Donald Evans says its all about donor relations:

“If I’m going to ask someone to be supportive of this with their generous contribution…I need to able to tell them that I will be fully responsible to them.”

At one point the University community was told that the Bush Institute would be housed in a separate building, but the latest plans show essentially one building. But Bush Foundation President Mark Langdale  describes them invitingly as “jammed together like town houses.”

How will the Bush Institute fill its days?  Traub quotes Bush Administration fixture Elliot “Mr. Kennelworth” Abrams, apparently seasoned by his “controversial tenure in the Reagan administration” enthusing over the “embattled” and “dissident” figures Bush claims to identify with.

  Natan Sharansky is one such em-battler,  but he appears comfortably ensconced in his own institute in Israel.  Another em-battler endlessly mentioned here and elsewhere is Vaclav Havel, who Bush longs to com over and write something, anything.  Why-ever he would leave his comfortable Prague retirement or his own Presidential Library for Dallas is unclear.

“The Bush circle has done so much damage to every institution they’ve touched, it would be naive not to worry about the damage they could do to SMU.”

You Think?    

James Traub is to explore George W. Bush’s Fantastic Freedom Institute to be at Southern Methodist University in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, and National Treasure Greg Mitchell has the disgruntled money quote in a Huffington Post teaser.

Almost* April In de Paris 

One president was shot wearing a suit he tailored, and another was buried in one. Now Georges de Paris feels it’s time for Barack Obama to get shovel ready too.

Ronald Reagan almost died in a de Paris suit, and Gerald Ford,  formerly “our most athletic President” rode his last mile wearing one.

The legendary Washington tailor and renowned hair farmer tells Vanity Fair  Obama is letting down the team wearing casual clothing, and doesn’t much care for his fancy clothes neither.

““The suits President Obama has is not quality.”

A new chapter in Tony Blair’s Bush’s Poodle career is revealed, as de Paris claims the former prime minister ordered up a duplicate of a Bush suit de Paris was making.  Tragically he is silent on the only Bush fashion question to have ever troubled Americans:

    What the hell was that thing on his upper back?  

*March 30,1981