{"id":389,"date":"2026-06-21T09:37:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T09:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=389"},"modified":"2026-06-21T09:37:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T09:37:51","slug":"this-week-in-nation-history-george-w-bush-opens-his-presidential-library-collective-amnesia-reigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=389","title":{"rendered":"This Week in &#8216;Nation&#8217; History: George W. Bush Opens His Presidential Library &amp; Collective Amnesia Reigns"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<div>\n<div>\n<article>\n<header>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>April 27, 2013<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1>This Week in \u2018Nation\u2019 History: George W. Bush Opens His Presidential Library &amp; Collective Amnesia Reigns<\/h1>\n<h1>This Week in \u2018Nation\u2019 History: George W. Bush Opens His Presidential Library &amp; Collective Amnesia Reigns<\/h1>\n<h2>\n<p><em>The Nation<\/em>&#8216;s archive helps us remember.<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<section>\n<time>April 27, 2013<\/time><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas, Texas, last week has led to a re-examination of the forty-third president\u2019s legacy. An article in <em>The Washington Post<\/em> noted Bush\u2019s approval rating has enjoyed a steady increase in the four years since he left office, attributing that spike to \u201cthe passage of time and Bush\u2019s relative invisibility.\u201d While that public invisibility has indeed been enjoyable, the library dedication should be an occasion to remember what it actually felt like in America during the Bush years. To take a tour through <em>The Nation<\/em>\u2019s early judgments of Bush\u2014before the wars, the cronyism, and the rejection of the rule of law brought such criticisms mainstream\u2014is to be truly spoiled because there is so much to choose from, and there are many articles that deserve a second reading.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>An early article on Bush\u2019s first presidential campaign, \u201cRunning on Empty: The Truth About George W. Bush\u2019s \u2018Compassionate Conservatism,\u2019\u2009\u201d from April 1999, tried and failed to  a single way Bush had been compassionate to any constituency in Texas apart from his oil and gas industry cronies, arms manufacturers, polluters and other corporate malefactors. It also  Bush\u2019s penchant for \u201cspeaking in tongues intended to be understood by the Christian right\u201d and the regular-guy routine that became an important and effective component of his electoral strategy. \u201cYou think that if you could only forget the policies, the appointment and the vetoes, you could really love this guy,\u201d <em>Texas Observer<\/em> editor Louis Dubose wrote. \u201cHe\u2019s that good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An article published just before the 2000 election by David Corn, recent Polk Award winner and former Washington bureau chief for <em>The Nation<\/em>,  the governor\u2019s performance during the campaign\u2014in which \u201cBush\u2019s intelligence became a campaign issue\u201d\u2014and weighed the candidates\u2019 respective closing arguments. \u201cThe dominant theme is, trust people, not the government,\u201d Karl Rove told Corn. His boss\u2019s own argument was more, well, succinct. \u201cThe greatness of America exists because our country is great,\u201d Bush declared. At a certain point, one does feel a little nostalgic. <\/p>\n<p>After <em>Bush v. Gore<\/em>, and after 9\/11, <em>The Nation <\/em>had much more serious concerns about Bush than his garbled diction. In an editorial called \u201cBush\u2019s Domestic War,\u201d from December 2001, we  with Bush \u201cinvoking his wartime popularity and authority\u201d for the purpose of ramming his conservative social and economic agenda through a reluctant Democratic Congress. \u201cSeptember 11 was supposed to change everything, but despite war and recession the President remains wedded to the same reactionary agenda he pushed before the attack,\u201d we wrote. \u201cBush is squandering his chance to be a national unity President in order to pursue a conservative agenda out of step with the nation\u2019s needs and the people\u2019s expectations.\u201d It was his pernicious combination of imperialistic foreign policy and reactionary domestic agenda that marked the Bush era in real time, and which deserves to be remembered today, despite the $500 million library and museum\u2014and the former president\u2019s calculated invisibility\u2014designed to help us forget.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>The idea of the presidential library\u2014first conceived by Franklin Roosevelt in 1939\u2014has endured its own share of <em>Nation<\/em> criticism and parody, as in a 1971 article by <em>Los Angeles Times <\/em>reporter Nicholas Chriss. In \u201cLyndon Gets His Library,\u201d Chriss  that Johnson, like Bush, was \u201cno longer all that interested in the gut politics that absorbed him in the past\u201d and would probably spend much time in the library if he could ever pass through the rows of University of Texas students protesting the war he escalated beyond repair. Chriss further questioned the objectivity of the museum\u2019s account of the Johnson years, the completeness of its documentation and the anonymity of its donors.<\/p>\n<p>A mock advertisement for the future George W. Bush Presidential Library was published in <em>The Nation<\/em> in September 2004, written by senior editor Richard Lingeman,  to offer billionaire donors \u201can opportunity to discharge your debt to George W. Bush for the handsome returns provided by his administration.\u201d The circular continues:<\/p>\n<p>Visitors enter through the imposing three-foot-thick Rumsefeld Memorial Bronze Doors, inlaid with scenes of George W. Bush\u2019s Ten Most Statesmanlike Moments. Once inside, visitors are escorted to the John Ashcroft Lounge for interrogation and full orifice search. After screening they may proceed to the Great Hall, where two large dioramas are displayed: \u201cMission Accomplished: George W. Bush Bringing Democracy to a Grateful Iraqi People\u201d and \u201cMission Accomplished: George W. Bush Bringing Tax Relief to Grateful Billionaires.\u201d In the rear will be the Wall of Fame, on which are prominently displayed the names or corporate logos of $5 million donors to the Library.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p><em>Subscribers to <\/em>The Nation<em> can access our fully searchable digital archive, which contains thousands of historic articles, essays and reviews, letters to the editor and editorials dating back to July 6, 1865.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=386\">This Week in \u2018Nation\u2019 History: Time to Return Earth Day to its Radical Origins<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=388\">The American Fantasy of Cuba<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<footer>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>                Submit a correction<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>                Send a letter to the editor<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>                Reprints &amp; permissions<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h2><i>Support <\/i>The Nation<i>\u2019s June Fundraising Campaign<\/i><\/h2>\n<p>With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn\u2019t \u201cthink about Americans\u2019 financial situation,\u201d millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-\u201cd\u201d populist ideas\u2014not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.<\/p>\n<p><i>The Nation<\/i> elevates progressive ideas, movements, and elected officials achieving real change across the country into the national conversation. At the same time, our journalists are exposing how crypto and AI-funded super PACs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to knock out candidates they oppose, reporting on the devastating impact of the Supreme Court\u2019s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, and sounding the alarm on attempts by red states to quickly redraw electoral maps, disenfranchising Southern Black voters.<\/p>\n<p><b>We can play this critical role because of support from readers like you. This June, we\u2019re raising $20,000 to power <i>The Nation<\/i>\u2019s independent journalism in the run-up to November\u2019s immensely consequential elections.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s in our power to build a more just society, and your support at this critical moment brings us closer to that bold vision. I hope you\u2019ll donate today.<\/p>\n<p>Onward, <\/p>\n<p><span>Katrina vanden Heuvel<br \/>Editor and Publisher, <i><span>The Nation<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span> Katrina vanden Heuvel<svg>\n<\/svg><br \/>\n<\/span>Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of <em>The Nation<\/em>, America\u2019s leading source of progressive politics and culture. An expert on international affairs and US politics, she is an award-winning columnist and frequent contributor to <em>The Guardian<\/em>. Vanden Heuvel is the author of several books, including <em>The Change I Believe In: Fighting for Progress in The Age of Obama<\/em>, and co-author (with Stephen F. Cohen) of <em>Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev\u2019s Reformers<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=383\">Lessons From the People\u2019s Historian, Howard Zinn<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n<\/div>\n<p><input\/><br \/>\n<input\/><br \/>\n<\/footer>\n<\/article>\n<p>Ad Policy<br \/>\n<!-- <a class=\"inifiniteLoader\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/new_infi_loader.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a> -->\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>This Week in &#8216;Nation&#8217; History: George W. 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