Dubya’s half-billion tower of Babel: Bush’s ‘truest believers’ plan mother of all presidential libraries and conservative think tanks
By Bill Berkowitz Online Journal Guest Writer
After six years of incompetence and cronyism, a failed war against terrorism, the quagmire that is Iraq, wars against science, the environment, corporate regulation and the public’s right-to-know, a chummy working relationship with the country’s most reactionary conservative evangelical Christians, a politicized faith-based initiative, giveaways to the energy industry, tax relief for the wealthy, a culture of corruption culminating in the forced resignations and imprisonment of some of the administrations key soldiers, and an attack on fundamental democratic rights and values, the Bush Administration is hatching plans to celebrate itself with a $500 million library (the costliest presidential library ever) to be built after Bush’s second term is over.
In what is being called “their final campaign,” Bush’s “truest believers” are aiming to raise a half-billion dollars for the mother of all presidential libraries. The library and an attached think tank — which will pay for conservative research — is being earmarked for the Dallas, Texas campus of Southern Methodist University, where First Lady Laura Bush is an alumna and a trustee.
Inside Higher Ed recently pointed out that SMU, which had been competing for the library with Baylor University and the University of Dallas, appears to have cleared the final hurdle to getting the project when the university “won a court fight over its right to demolish a condo complex the university had purchased, in part to have land for the Bush project.”
That was before university faculty, administration, and staff questioned the ideological underpinnings of the project.
Bringing back the Pioneers
In late November, the New York Daily News reported that “Bush sources with direct knowledge of library plans” said that “Bush fund-raisers hope to get half of the half billion from what they call ‘megadonations’ of $10 million to $20 million a pop.” According to the Daily News, “Bush loyalists have already identified wealthy heiresses, Arab nations and captains of industry as potential ‘mega’ donors and are pressing for a formal site announcement — now expected early in the new year . . . The rest of the cash will come from donors willing to pony up $25,000 to $5 million.”
(While the donors to Bush 43’s library will remain anonymous, in February 2006, the Associated Press reported that among the donors to Papa Bush’s presidential library located at Texas A&M University in College Station were a sheik from the United Arab Emirates, who contributed at least $1 million, the state of Kuwait, the Bandar bin Sultan family, the Sultanate of Oman, King Hassan II of Morocco, the emir of Qatar, and the former Korean prime minister. China also gave tens of thousands of dollars to the library. In addition, funds were received from the late Kenneth Lay, the former head of Enron, and Dick Cheney, the current vice president.) [more]