It's White House Letter Day! Legacy or Think Tank Edition.

From an Bob Schieffer interview of Dear Leader apparently leaked to Elisabeth Bumiller:

"I would like to leave behind a legacy or a think tank, a place for people to talk about freedom and liberty, and the de Tocqueville model, what de Tocqueville saw in America," Mr. Bush told Mr. Schieffer. "I would like for there to be a place where young scholars come and write and think and articulate and opine and teach."

And so begins the wondrous journey that will culminate in the George W. Bush Freedom and Liberty Legacy or Think Tank Foundation.  It will be full of young scholars writing and thinking and legacy-ing all over the place about the the BushCo Doctrine of Preemption, what BushCo now modestly refers to as "the de Tocqueville model" and what I like to call the Doctrine of Eternal War. 

Think Progress jumped right on this with some good discussion starters for the young scholars BushCo hopes to get opinin':

“I foresee that all the military rulers who may rise up in great democratic nations will find it easier to conquer with their armies than to make their armies live at peace after conquest. There are two things that a democratic people will always find very difficult, to begin a war and to end it.” [Link]

“I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.” [Link]

“The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.” [Link]

“All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.” [Link]

“When an opinion has taken root among a democratic people and established itself in the minds of the bulk of the community, it afterwards persists by itself and is maintained without effort, because no one attacks it.” [Link] (Note: DeTocqueville never imagined the creation of blogs)

Mais ouch! 

What's most interesting to me is that Dear Leader is so open about the uninspiring do-nothing mandate for the BushCo Freedom and Liberty Legacy or Think Tank Foundation, which is rooted in sitting around talking about Freedon and Liberty.  That is, doing essentially nothing except figuring out how to catapult the old libertudinous propaganda. 

Contrast that with what Presidents Carter and Clinton chose to do with their legacies.  Here's Ms. Bumiller's look at past presidential legacies or think tanks:

There are now a dozen presidential libraries, from Franklin D. Roosevelt's in Hyde Park, N.Y., to Bill Clinton's in Little Rock, Ark., and they operate as shrines, repositories of presidential papers and resources for scholars. None have [sic] a policy center of the kind and size that Mr. Bush evidently envisions, although Jimmy Carter's is adjacent to the well-known Carter Center, dedicated to advancing human rights and fighting disease.

Well, that's news to President Clinton, whom Ms. Bumiller ignores completely after making the comment that his library cost the most to build.   I called the Clinton Foundation today (Try finding the phone number to that place - it's not as easy as you think.) The lady I spoke to said that the Foundation most certainly is connected with the library.   And what does the Clinton Foundation want to do?  From their site:

The mission of the William J. Clinton Foundation is to strengthen the         capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet         the challenges of global interdependence. To advance this mission, the         Clinton Foundation has developed programs and partnerships in the following         areas:

                        

Health Security
              Economic Empowerment
              Leadership Development and Citizen Service
              Racial, Ethnic and Religious Reconciliation

Nothing policy-related there.   And what has the Clinton Foundation done?

In Africa:

In the spring of 2005, President Clinton announced a bold initiative to   bring life-saving antiretroviral treatment to many of the millions of children   worldwide infected with HIV. Through the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative   (CHAI), President Clinton is drawing international attention and resources to the children   being left behind as HIV treatment scales up worldwide.

..

The   Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) is working to expand access   to pediatric treatment by supporting governments as they scale up their national   treatment programs to include increasing numbers of pediatric patients. The Clinton Foundation   also works to reduce the cost of pediatric ARV formulations and support the   training of pediatric care providers and the development of pediatric protocols.

In the United States:

The William J. Clinton Foundation’s Urban Enterprise Initiative (UEI)   supports the expansion of opportunity and economic growth in urban communities   by helping small businesses and entrepreneurs compete in the changing urban   marketplace. Working with partners, the Urban Enterprise Initiative provides   small business owners and entrepreneurs with the technical assistance and strategic   advice they need to grow their businesses and turn their vision into reality.

In our schools:

The Alliance for a Healthier Generation – a joint initiative of       the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association –       has worked with representatives of Cadbury Schweppes, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo,       and the American Beverage Association to establish new guidelines to limit       portion sizes and reduce the number of calories available to children during       the school day. Under these guidelines, only lower calorie and nutritious       beverages will be sold to schools. This is the Alliance’s first industry       agreement as part of its Healthy Schools Program, and it affects close to       35 million students across the country.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of time for sitting around and talking about de Tocqueville.  So here's to BushCo!  May he fill that void at the center of the nation's political soul and create the missing neocon policy center that will finally figure out the French perspective on freedom and liberty, long neglected by young scholars all over world.  After he finds a place to stick it, that is.

Ms. Bumiller also lets us in on the trouble BushCo is having deciding where to locate his modern marvel of political thought.  She's got inside information that during a dinner with Stanford's George Schultz, the Decider was grilling the former SecSt about what it's like to have the Hoover Institute on campus.  He needs to decide which elite university will get to host his joint:

At this point, Southern Methodist University in Dallas is considered the favorite to get Mr. Bush's presidential library and policy center, but the University of Dallas and Baylor University in Waco, Tex., near the president's ranch, are also in the running. All three universities have submitted formal proposals to the Bush library selection committee, led by Donald L. Evans, the former commerce secretary and Mr. Bush's longtime friend.

Go Mustangs!

Comments

[belga]

'The Doctrine of Eternal War' - simply brilliant, eRobin!

[DavidByron]

How does "belga" = Helga Fremlin ?