It has been a long, 8-year nightmare for us Americans [and much of the world]. The Bush presidency was simply awful. It was so atrocious that the Obama Administration has spent much of its time attempting to repair the enormous damage caused by the former president.
Oh, there are many Bush apologists and sycophants out there trying desperately to spin this pitiful presidency into something positive, something more than the facts portend. More than we witnesses to this painful history remember.
In fact, here is a preview of a NYT Magazine article that will be out Sunday:
NYT contributor James Traub explores the uproar over the soon-to-arrive "Freedom Institute" established by former President George W. Bush at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, which will sit astride his presidential library there. Critics on and off campus have denounced it for various reasons, including the fact that it has been set up to pursue and defend his policies and record, not for scholarly research.
It will begin operating this fall and the George Bush Foundation which runs it will name an executive director soon. Some profs at the school are half-convinced that Bush will appoint Karl Rove to the post. With that in mind, some there see Condi Rice as an acceptable alternative.
Another historian there charges: "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."
Traub points out "the prospect" of being identified "in perpetuity" with Bush's agenda "freezes the blood of some of the university's leading academics. Everything about the planned institute reminds them of what they detested about the Bush administration. It will proselytize rather than explore: a letter sent to universities bidding for the Bush center stipulated that the institute would, among other things, 'further the domestic and international goals of the Bush administration.'"
The prospect freezes the blood. And the mind as well as the soul. 'In perpetuity' is a frightening thought. Thus, Southern Methodist University is 'stuck' in the role of hosting a grotto to both incompetency as well as vindictiveness. A memorial to a clutch of ideologues who nearly ruined our nation from within and from without.
[graphic from sirenschronicles ]
