That Big Bush Hole in Dallas

This article by Gary Silverman appeared in the Financial Times on Friday, April 15, 2011. Enjoy.



A Bush Hole in Texas
By Gary Silverman

Published: April 14 2011 21:49 | Last updated: April 14 2011 21:49

Finding the right way to remember a former US president is no easy task. Slabs of marble and quotations from memorable speeches usually suffice for the great ones. But we rarely do the right thing when it comes to the lesser lights of the executive branch.

Given his record, George W. Bush seemed likely to be a particularly worrisome case when he walked out of the White House two years ago. But after visiting Dallas, Texas, this week I can report that the good people there have come up with a suitable tribute to our 43rd president – albeit inadvertently.

EDITOR’S CHOICE
More from Notebook - Apr-13Notebook: Oxford race row just the start - Apr-14Notebook: Social mobility yet to reach coalition - Apr-13Notebook: Cash is still king in the Big Apple - Apr-08Notebook: Horses, houses and trouble at th’ mills - Mar-29Notebook: The PM needs GOD on his side - Mar-16You can see it on the campus of Southern Methodist University, where the George W. Bush Presidential Center is being built. Viewed from the street, the site looks like any another unfinished construction project – complete with towering cranes, scattered building materials and a really big hole in the ground. But viewed from the perspective of history, the hole at the unfinished project struck me as a vivid reminder of the Bush years.

After all, digging holes – from which Americans had to extricate themselves – was a speciality of Mr Bush. There were the wars without end, the growing budget deficit, the subprime mortgage meltdown and the economic collapse that left the homeland strewn with unfinished construction projects not unlike the one in Dallas.

As I surveyed the scene, I was seized by the thought that Mr Bush deserved a big hole of his own – this hole in Dallas. I wondered whether the organisers of the presidential centre could be persuaded to stop work on the project and convert the construction site into some sort of national monument. We could call it the Bush Hole, or something like that, and schoolchildren could visit so that they could learn from the mistakes of the past and be taught to avoid option adjustable-rate mortgages in the future.


I apologise in advance for any inconvenience my modest proposal might cause the people in Dallas who are working on the project. It is obvious that a lot of hard work has been put into the planning of Mr Bush’s presidential centre. At a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to press reports, the project isupposed to include a 226,565 sq ft George W. Bush Library, a 15-acre urban park featuring its own rainwater collection system and “a Texas Rose Garden, possessing the same proportions, solar orientation and formal organisation as the White House Rose Garden”.

But I find it hard to understand why we need to set aside so much extra space to house the archives of an administration whose policies contributed to the emptying of so many homes, offices and factories in the US. (At a sprawling 23 acres, the Dallas site is actually larger than the 18-acre plot under Mr Bush’s old residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.)

Perhaps Mr Bush and his financial backers could make amends for their contribution to the US housing collapse by reconfiguring an empty sunbelt condominium for research use, or by converting an abandoned factory in an industrial area of the Midwest into a library. In this spirit, I would observe that if Cleveland is good enough for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it is good enough for Mr Bush’s centre. (And imagine the conversations if visitors to the two tourist attractions meet!)

Whatever money is left over after dealing with the former president’s stuff could go towards paying for workers at the Bush Hole in Dallas to maintain the contours of the cavity and help members of the public understand the symbolism of the unfinished construction site.

Based on my visit to Dallas, I also envision a role for local artists and writers in the project. I see particular potential in making greater use of the fence that runs along the perimeter of the site as a forum for communication.

As of now, the fence is being used for the utilitarian signs you see at most workplaces. But once I began looking at the site as a symbol of the Bush era, these terse communications took on additional significance. Perhaps it was the result of spending too much time in the blistering Texas sun, but I found one of the signs outside the Bush Hole particularly poignant. It said simply: “Not hiring at this time.”

I thought to myself that it was as good a summation of Mr Bush’s economic legacy as any that I had read anywhere else, and I resolved to do what I could to see that old Number 43 is remembered properly in this country.

The big hole in Dallas would be a great start.