Broken Thumb Blog

The funniest thing came through my radio the other day. It shouldn't have been funny; every President since Truman has done it, and I should have expected it. Nonetheless I laughed indeed when I heard mention of the "George W. Bush Presidential Library."

Immediately I had a vision of Derek Zoolander and his Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good. Given all the materials that the GWB people will call "classified files which must be hidden to preserve the people of this good nation and to keep them safe from the evildoers," I wondered what small sample of memoribilia and documentation will researchers and guests find in the Bush Presidential Library.

Below are a scant few of the small number of items I expect to be on display or otherwise available to the public.

Captain America, published by Marvel Comics, issues 1-current (bet that Steve Rogers would've found Osama by now)
Flight Suit and Banner with "Mission Accomplished."
Handwritten Letter from GWB to Mike Brown, Dir. of FEMA, dated August 3, 2005. "My Dearest Brownie,..."
The Texas Chainsaw used to massacre Crawford brush.

While it is this man's personal prerogative to establish the library, I wonder how much about the Bush Presidency we will learn that we don't already know. Given that the administration has hidden and deleted as much as possible during his tenure in the Oval Office, we probably already know as much as we ever will. What we do know is probably not worth enshrining and re-visiting. I suspect the whole thing will amount to little more than a sanitized retrospective of a legacy unworthy of commemoration.

I recognize that as a Republican I am supposed to fawn over the man, this great "Compassionate Conservative." However, I am one of those pesky--but true--Conservatives who cannot stand the way GWB expanded the scope and size of the federal government, waged an unnecessary foreign war at great cost in blood and treasure, and willfully circumvented Constitutional limits meant to constrain the elected agents of a tyranny of the majority.

At least I can laugh at the irony.

Bruce Chapman of Seattle's Discovery Institute has penned a nice overview of the primary process (both Democratic and Republican) in Washington State. I recommend it for all of you who may be interested in what's going on here.

As for the Potomac Primary tomorrow, I foresee a Huckabee win in Virginia (the sizeable military vote for McCain notwithstanding) and more than a few of the proportional delegates from Maryland going his way. DC belongs to Senator McCain't-Yet-Close-the-Deal.

It seems that Gov. Huckabee, failing to major in math, also skipped pre-law. The Washington State caucus rules are located on the website for King County here.

Did the State GOP make a stupid mistake in calling the winner here? I don't know enough about what exactly happened. Perhaps Luke Esser got ahead of himself and announced McCain won (which was not appropriate given the close tally so far reported). I doubt that the Washington State GOP would have committed such a blatantly stupid "manipulation" of the results in plain view of the whole country during this highly energized election cycle. At least, I hope not.