Petrelis Files

Bids for Bush's $260-300M Library Due Today

Here's some comic relief for today, which is the deadline for proposals to be submitted to the White House for the George W. Bush Presidential Library that will be built in Texas, upon Bush leaving the Oval Office. If only that day were approaching sooner rather than later.

Here's a round-up of highlights about institutions in Texas scrambling to get their bids in today:

1.
"Also, the site would include a presidentially-mandated policy institute to spread George W. Bush's ideals regarding the rule of law, economic and business development, and health and welfare. The institute would function like a think tank."

"The estimated price tag for the entire project will range from approximately $260-$300 million. Most of the money will go directly to construction, but $60 million will be required for the federally mandated maintenance endowment." (Source: The Daily Texan, UT campus at Austin.)

I don't know which is scarier; three more years of Bush, or a think-tank dedicated to spreading his ideals.

2.
"President Bush, who is expected to make a decision sometime next year, guaranteed that the library will be built in his home state by inviting only Texas contenders to make a bid. Others in the hunt for the presidential library are Texas A&M, Baylor and a 10-city West Texas coalition that would base the library-museum at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, with a component in Midland.
"A three-member committee composed of former Commerce Secretary Don Evans, Marvin Bush, the president's brother, and Craig Stapleton, the husband of one of Bush's cousins, will screen the proposals after today's deadline, but the timetable after that remains unclear [...]

"The bids are due in Marvin Bush's office in McLean, Va., a Washington suburb, by the end of the day Thursday. UT got the jump on the deadline when its Washington representative, William Shute, hand-carried the proposal to the office Wednesday afternoon." (Source: Ft. Worth newspaper.)

The bidding process sounds like it's on a par with the way the Bush administration hands out contracts for rebuilding Iraq and New Orleans.

3.

Proposals for Bush library are kept hush-hush
Dallas Morning News (subscription), TX - 14 hours ago
... The full-color proposal also features a picture of first daughter Jenna Bush, a UT-Austin alum, flashing a "Hook 'em Horns" sign. ... (Source: Dallas News.)

So she still hasn't found her way to the U.S. Army recruiting office and signed up for duty in Iraq.