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Making The Numbers Work 

On the eve of George W. Bush’s brain trust meeting to dope out his average Wal-Mart Super Center-sized presidential library’s future, his handlers remain evasive on exhibition formats and content.

Bush’s legion of the lost are to dine with the ex-president Monday, then spend Tuesday big thinkin’ about his library and rehabilitation center. The New York Times now reports that the Bush era will be summed up by discussing “20 consequential decisions,” up from just 12 earlier this month, and that Iraq has made a triumphant return as a topic for discussion, whereas before we’d been told it was best left to “history.”

Bush himself offers his own smilingly vague thoughts on the library-to-be in a video produced by a Republican campaign operative. He gets into the spirit of the thing by dropping the classic “Democrat”as opposed to “Democratic” slur while claiming that his failed campaign to sink Social Security   into the stock market at the height of the bubble will somehow make his think tank the go-to guys on the subject.

The Bush Library’s site offers more tantalizing hints of the unfolding magic:

“Central to the museum experience will be an understanding of the historic events that occurred during the Bush presidency and case studies of key decisions made by the President that promoted the fundamental governing ideals of freedom, opportunity, responsibility and compassion.“

So I guess that leaves out the torture explanation!