As the worst President of the United States ever prepares his exit, in January 2009, plans are drawn to build a monument to his legacy: a Presidential Library that should be built at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the alma mater of First Lady Laura Bush. The building should cost 0.5 billion dollars.
However, a group of teachers and staff from the School of Theology wrote to R. Gerald Turner, president of the Board of Trustees, to urge the board to “reconsider and to rescind SMU’s pursuit of the presidential library.” The letter, that you can read here, says among other things: "We count ourselves among those who would regret to see SMU enshrine attitudes and actions widely deemed as ethically egregious: degradation of habeas corpus, outright denial of global warming, flagrant disregard for international treaties, alienation of long-term U.S. allies, environmental predation, shameful disrespect for gay persons and their rights, a preemptive war based on false and misleading premises, and a host of other erosions of respect for the global human community and for this good Earth on which our flourishing depends."
The Chronicle of Higher Education decided to ask its readers to sketch plans for a building that would show the world the accomplishment of George W. Bush (on top, one of the 120 plans sent to the magazine) and the contest was a success, as Scott Carlson relates in this video.
