It is truly a sign of the times when a presidential library is having trouble finding a place to build itself. With an 81% disapproval rating (or, let’s say, a 19% approval rating), George W. Bush’s legacy, his presidential library, may find itself homeless.
And this time it’s all the fault of the Methodists.
The Methodists held their annual General Conference this past week. It adjourned just at about this writing. This conference is where they all get together annually and decide on policy. What hymnals to purchase, which countries to condemn and which to support, adoption of a new mission statement, the list goes on and on.
And one item on the agenda was a petition to The United Methodist Church’s conference to prevent the establishment of the George W. Bush Presidential Library on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas. This particular agenda item was voted out of committee to be presented to the entire conference where it received 844 Aye votes, and 20 No. That, by the way, amounts to a 97.7% disapproval rating.
The petition, written by one Diane Smock of Greenville, South Carolina, reads like this:
Smock’s petition got overwhelming approval and was also approved by a huge majority to be referred to the South Central Jurisdictional conference, the group with immediate oversight of SMU.
Local rule and local policy and all that.
But when you get a message like this from the national conference it is going to look a little odd when you ignore it. South Central is going to have a problem explaining to the rest of the church why they went ahead and built a presidential library to commemorate the presidency that will make that of James Buchanan, long-regarded as the worst president in US history, seem absolutely brilliant by comparison.
Quite frankly, I am a little disappointed. I was looking forward to having the Bush Foundation spend half a billion dollars building this monument to stupidity. I was especially looking forward to the Bush Library “Think Tank” that was supposed to be included in the package. A George W. Bush “Think Tank”. Truly the mother of all oxymorons.
I am also disappointed that some of the library designs submitted to “The Chronicle of Higher Education” will all be for naught. There were some real doozeys. The most important rule in the competition was that the submissions must all be drawn on the backs of envelopes. They received over a hundred designs, and put up their
favorites on their website to be voted upon. My favorite one, shown at right, was the winner.
My favorite part was the reflecting pool, where visitors to this library, which actually has no public access, can stare down at their reflections in the water, to “see in the reflection below who is to blame: themselves the voters.”
And this time it’s all the fault of the Methodists.
The Methodists held their annual General Conference this past week. It adjourned just at about this writing. This conference is where they all get together annually and decide on policy. What hymnals to purchase, which countries to condemn and which to support, adoption of a new mission statement, the list goes on and on.
And one item on the agenda was a petition to The United Methodist Church’s conference to prevent the establishment of the George W. Bush Presidential Library on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas. This particular agenda item was voted out of committee to be presented to the entire conference where it received 844 Aye votes, and 20 No. That, by the way, amounts to a 97.7% disapproval rating.
The petition, written by one Diane Smock of Greenville, South Carolina, reads like this:
“I hereby petition the UMC General Conference to prevent leasing, selling, or otherwise participating in or supporting the presidential library for George W. Bush at Southern Methodist University. We should support separation of church and state, and if the Bush library goes on the SMU campus or property it will appear to the country and the world as an endorsement of that president by the United Methodist Church. Texas is a big state, surely there are other venues.”Did you like that? Here is another petition signed by Methodist Church bishops and college professors.
Smock’s petition got overwhelming approval and was also approved by a huge majority to be referred to the South Central Jurisdictional conference, the group with immediate oversight of SMU.
Local rule and local policy and all that.
But when you get a message like this from the national conference it is going to look a little odd when you ignore it. South Central is going to have a problem explaining to the rest of the church why they went ahead and built a presidential library to commemorate the presidency that will make that of James Buchanan, long-regarded as the worst president in US history, seem absolutely brilliant by comparison.
Quite frankly, I am a little disappointed. I was looking forward to having the Bush Foundation spend half a billion dollars building this monument to stupidity. I was especially looking forward to the Bush Library “Think Tank” that was supposed to be included in the package. A George W. Bush “Think Tank”. Truly the mother of all oxymorons.
I am also disappointed that some of the library designs submitted to “The Chronicle of Higher Education” will all be for naught. There were some real doozeys. The most important rule in the competition was that the submissions must all be drawn on the backs of envelopes. They received over a hundred designs, and put up their
favorites on their website to be voted upon. My favorite one, shown at right, was the winner.My favorite part was the reflecting pool, where visitors to this library, which actually has no public access, can stare down at their reflections in the water, to “see in the reflection below who is to blame: themselves the voters.”
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