The George W. Bush Presidential library opened last week, and the Good Dog, Carl jokes flowed like wine. But it wasn’t all people thought.
Some of the surprises awaiting people?
“Saddam is ‘juggling’ weapons of mass ‘indigestion’ in the ‘greenhouse’?? Ah, hahahahahah! That invasion would have been the BEST!
Justification For Invading Iraq mad libs!
When you reach the end of the first chapter of any book in the library, there’s a “Ta-da!” chime, confetti, and a little banner pops up that reads “Book Accomplished!”
Big jar with discounted and discarded ballots from the 2000 election. Guess what percentage voted democrat and win a prize!
Bushism laboratories: dedicated engineers, chemists, architects, and other visionaries work ‘round the clock to make all of Bush’s malapropisms legitimate. They won’t rest until we’ve set the pie higher, until we’ve made our wings take dream, and until we can get a good night’s sleep on the soil of a friend.
Plan your trip carefully – the library is rarely open, as employees there take an astonishing amount of vacations.
Every 1,000th visitor gets bailed out of one botched career, military desertion, or failed academic pursuit by Bush Sr.!
Every 1,001st visitor gets shot in the face by Dick Cheney.
What Would You Have Done?: Try to minimize the suffering and terror as hurricane Katrina devastates one of America’s most historic cities OR go to a barbecue? What you may not have known!: The barbecue had dry-rub.
Dictionaries all contain the word “nucular.”
If you have a book overdue to the W. library? Guantanamo Bay.
An interactive “Well, What Would You Have Done, Smartypants?” game in which you, who think you’re so smart, get to face the decisions the president did and see if you’re such hot stuff. (here’s the irony: I wrote this and then found out this one’s real)
Televsions. So many televisions.
The Byronic Man 
April 29, 2013 at 4:37 am
Is there also a little “free speech” zone some 40-50 miles away where you can express your thoughts about the museum?
April 29, 2013 at 11:50 am
Exactly. The comment cards on-site only have room to say positive things.
April 29, 2013 at 4:52 am
Gosh, I figured there’d only be a few well-thumbed comics, a large screen TV streaming classic cartoons, and a vending machine. I had no idea it would be so diverse.
April 29, 2013 at 11:50 am
He is a many of many facets – and, as was recently discovered, watercolor paintings.
April 29, 2013 at 5:05 am
Good ribs are delicious and that water wasn’t receding anytime soon. Tough call.
April 29, 2013 at 11:51 am
“Would my getting involved actually stop the hurricane? No? There you go. Bib me.”
April 29, 2013 at 5:11 am
Yes, as far as I know, the lie-berry does NOT include a section on Hurricane Katrina. Another stellar Bush moment. The pretzel that almost killed him is well-preserved, however. His baseball collection is there, as well. True. All this at his wife’s alma mater.
April 29, 2013 at 11:55 am
I like the idea of a completely revised history there. No recession. No Abu Ghraib. No… well, no most everything from those 8 years.
April 29, 2013 at 5:27 am
Gold, Jerry. Gold!
April 29, 2013 at 11:57 am
“What if we do a whole presidency about… nothing?”
April 29, 2013 at 12:00 pm
[Opens door] “Hello… Cheney.”
Nope. That just doesn’t work in print.
April 29, 2013 at 5:54 am
But will there be barbecue? Cuz I’m there if that’s there. Which Bush are we talking about?
April 29, 2013 at 11:58 am
Well, it’s in Dallas, so I’m going to go ahead and say, yes. There will be barbecue.
April 29, 2013 at 6:28 am
I’m really worried about getting BBQ sauce on my Mad Libs, but this episode of Honey Boo Boo is so riveting!
April 29, 2013 at 11:59 am
You know I’ve never seen that show? I like to pretend it isn’t real, and everyone’s just fooling me.
April 29, 2013 at 6:42 am
Don’t forget the pop-up books!
April 29, 2013 at 12:00 pm
The Abu Ghraib pop-up book is, well, it’s not for the feint of heart.
April 29, 2013 at 7:02 am
You forgot to mention the keg stand room and infamous glass encased “Presidency for Dummies” book made famous for it’s historic and well-thumbed pages.
April 29, 2013 at 11:56 am
I can think of several presidents who could use that book.
April 29, 2013 at 7:38 am
You liberry card is printed on a pop tart because you might as well eat it.
May 1, 2013 at 6:31 am
No harm in multi-tasking!
April 29, 2013 at 8:30 am
I have to preemptively sympathize with the 1,001,000th visitor: he’d be put on the path to the presidency by Bush Sr., only to be shot by Dick Cheney. But I think it’s very likely that Bush Jr. will be that visitor.
April 29, 2013 at 12:01 pm
He’s generally there most days. Sometimes leading tours, sometimes just poking around, sometimes visiting the displays and sighing, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s how it happened. Just like that.”
April 29, 2013 at 4:40 pm
and also, “Can you believe I was once president of the United States”, and the visitors are all like, “No, we can’t”….
April 29, 2013 at 9:31 am
BBQ AND some of them new-fangled televisions?! I’m sold (except for the buckshot in the face thing) It really is amazing they have a “WWYD?” exhibit, complete with a countdown for added pressure. Of course, I always opt for taking a nap before I make any big decisions, just like Bush.
April 29, 2013 at 11:53 am
Obviously the presidency has unimaginable pressure, but I like the idea of a literal countdown clock in the oval office – like a shot-clock. “You have two minutes to veto this bill or your signature is invalid!”
April 29, 2013 at 11:02 am
Ouch! Why anyone would fund the total ego trip that is a Presidential library is a mystery to me. For example, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when somebody talked big-money donors into funding the Stained Intern’s Clothing wing at President Clinton’s library.
May 1, 2013 at 6:32 am
I’m working on my library. So far it’s really just my boxes of memorabilia, but “library” sounds classier.
May 1, 2013 at 2:04 pm
“The Byronic Man Library and Archives” sounds even classier…
April 29, 2013 at 4:12 pm
Wow. The George W. Bush library sounds like something I’d see in an onion headline. And I can’t believe “What would you have done, Smartypants?” is real. Although, I’m sure it’s not called anything even remotely as awesome as that.
May 1, 2013 at 6:33 am
Well… okay I added the ‘smartypants,’ but it’s totally implied.
April 29, 2013 at 4:32 pm
Is the last one you mention, the interactive game, called something like “You Be the Decider!”
May 1, 2013 at 6:34 am
I think it was supposed to be, but W threw a fit because being the Decider is like “Highlander” – there can be only one.
April 29, 2013 at 6:42 pm
Is there a room devoted to “My Pet Goat?
May 1, 2013 at 6:34 am
It’s filed under B for “Books to take your mind off in-progress national catastrophes.”
May 1, 2013 at 6:53 am
Ah, good. It’s such a great story.
April 29, 2013 at 9:43 pm
Confetti made from hanging chads? I want to be greeted with it. Um, if I were to ever give in and go to Texas. Clever post Byronic.
May 1, 2013 at 6:55 am
It’s so strange to think back to that election. There must have been people involved with that whole thing who just kept thinking, “There’s no way we’re going to get away with this. There’s just no way.”
May 1, 2013 at 8:32 am
I tend to believe they weren’t really thinking… just running amok. But, either way, it was so yucky to watch.
April 30, 2013 at 12:21 am
I can’t help feeling if only Alanis Morrisette had waited a few years, she would have had a new line for her “Isn’t it ironic?” song:
“It’s like rain / on your wedding day / It’s like a libareeeee / named after Dubya….” Well ok, it doesn’t scan, but you get the gist…
May 1, 2013 at 6:56 am
Well, what it lacks in rhyme it makes up for in legitimate irony.
April 30, 2013 at 2:53 am
I just finished gobbling up the first season of The West Wing (remember that show?), so this hardy-har is really tickling my political funny bone.
May 1, 2013 at 6:56 am
What a great show that was. And it was like fantasy fiction for people who wanted a different president than you find in, you know, reality.
April 30, 2013 at 3:08 am
Are all the books on the shelves stored upside down so Dubya can pretend to read them to little kids whenever the mood strikes?
May 1, 2013 at 6:58 am
I wonder if he ever thinks of the morning of 9/11 and can’t help but mutter, “of all the stupid, unmanly, unpresidential things I could be doing at that moment…”
May 1, 2013 at 5:42 am
Once you mention the dry rub it is game over for me. They would be on their own. I would be at the barbecue.
May 1, 2013 at 6:57 am
See? And now you know.
May 2, 2013 at 2:53 pm
You know he’s picked up painting, right? So it’s safe to assume there’s some kind of “Paint by Numbers” exhibit featuring many, many portraits of Barney.
May 5, 2013 at 3:23 pm
Not only is the “What Would You Have Done, Smartypants?” thing real… it tells you when you’re “wrong.” George comes up and tells you why your way is not the way he did it because he was right.
Also? There’s a section in the library called Decision Points, after the title of his book, and am I the only person who still insists that that very phrase is also a malapropism?