Cartoon #209: “Bush Library”

Bids to host the George W. Bush Presidential Library, due Thursday, September 15, 2005, include proposals from The University of Texas, Texas Tech University, Southern Methodist University, Baylor University, Texas A&M University, The University of Dallas, Midland College, and the City of Arlington, Texas. No bid is pending, however, from the New Orleans Superdome, where survivors of hurricane Katrina waited in vain for help from Bush in the week following the destruction of their city.

No new building would need to be built. The existing building would need no restoration, renovation or cleanup. The Superdome’s leaking roof would symbolize the the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity to the Press. The stench and lack of airconditioning would represent Bush’s contempt for the environment and disregard for Global Warming. The former sports stadium is already appropriately decorated with biohazardous polution. The blood of the victims of rape and murder, including that of women and children who wanted nothing more than food, water and urgent rescue by their own government would serve as a dual symbol, representing the suffering of Iraqi women and children.

The money that would have been spent building a pretentious monument glorifying the Criminal of Crawford could instead go toward rebuilding the millions of human lives that Bush helped destroy. As a symbol of the mass death and suffering of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, as a symbol of the total destruction of a major American city, as a symbol of the oxymoronic “compassionate conservative” misnomer resulting from the dangerously misguided foreign and domestic policies of the Bush Administration, The New Orleans Superdome is the perfect site. Therefore, I hereby submit this cartoon as my formal proposal to the Bush Library selection committee.