Book Him 
The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize winning arts critic Mark Feeney has solved the Presidential Library/Pharaoh-ization problem: Make Obama go first!
It’s a position our first African-American President has been in many times before, and why not round out Black History Month by renouncing the building of his all but inevitable Presidential Library?
I agree with almost everything Feeney says about these places – the terrible history, bad architecture, and overall waste of these monuments to would-be greatness.
But why start with the new guy? George W. Bush has yet to announce a design, much less break ground – that one could be strangled in its birth. The Carter Library will be is closed most of this year in order to sink another $10 million into the place. And despite Feeney’s claim that the Nixon Library finally got his papers in 2007, they are still building,  
      and the papers are not expected on site until Fall 2009.
The established Presidential Libraries are rotting from within, and could be left to wither. But why does Barack Obama have to be first?
The Forgotten Man 
The Dallas Morning News reports that former President Bush is on a slow road to nowhere in the mysteries of the Internet. In Google searches for “bush library”  The George W. Bush Presidential Center ranks below Dad and below a blog on the Library-to-be that hasn’t been updated since May 2007.
The News goes to the gnomes of Search Engine Land, who advise the former Chief Executive to make friends online.
Twitter?
Size MattersÂ
The George W. Bush Presidential Library has yet to announce a design or break ground, but it has already grown by 20,000 square feet over the last 18 months. The Dallas Morning News reports the behemoth is now planned for 207,000 square feet “akin to an average Wal-Mart Super Center.” That is twice the size of Bush Senior’s library, and only 60,000 square feet short of the Reagan Library, which holds Air Force One.
It’s an ever shape-shifting object. Â Â Fundraising for the complex is going poorly, and the library/museum parts are shrinking by 5,000 square feet even as the Fantastic Freedom Institute continues to swell. The hoped for legacy enhancer will now fill 66,000 square feet, up from the 40,000 planned in 2007.Â
  Room For No View
 
Expectant neighbors of the exciting Bush/SMU-Library-To-Be are thrilled to learn that they’ll have a parking lot smack up against their houses, north across SMU Boulevard from the Library proper.
Responding to their outcries, George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation President Mark Langdale pledged to remain noncommittal:
 “We want to be responsive to their concerns to the extent that we can.’’Â
 I Ever Tell You The One… 
Proud Libra and Ramallahh resident, Palestinian-American blogger Sam Bahour is doing his part to bridge the gap, bringing the two [or more!] sides together by recycling yet again a Bush Library Classic Joke we’ve all so enjoyed over the years.
Taking time from the “Territories” day to day occupation grind, EPalestine can’t resist the musty rib-tickler which begins…
“The George W. Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages and accepting donations.”
I get 34,000 Google hits for this one. Your results may very.
