Mission Accomplished, “Polishing” History

Clearly the Bush administration has been an utter failure in real time; so, what’s left for a Republican administration with such a record of accomplishments? Why the future, of course. Better yet, what’s left for such an administration is simply to rewrite history, so that future generations don’t ever have a true sense of the magnitude Bush’s catastrophes, er, accomplishments.

Now, how will the Republican administration go about rewriting history?

To start with, Bush supporters will raise $500 million dollars:

Bush loyalists have already identified wealthy heiresses, Arab nations and captains of industry as potential “mega” donors and are pressing for a formal site announcement - now expected early in the new year.

One does have to give these Bush loyalists credit, because, unlike the man they support, they are at least being honest about what they hope to buy for $500 million dollars:

Bush allies feel they need enormous funds to shape how history views Bush’s legacy. A Bush insider said, “The more [money] you have, the more influence [on history] you can exert.”

[...]

The legacy-polishing centerpiece is an institute, which several Bush insiders called the Institute for Democracy. Patterned after Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Bush’s institute will hire conservative scholars and “give them money to write papers and books favorable to the President’s policies,” one Bush insider said.

If the Bush loyalists succeed in rewriting history, future generations may believe that the invasion of Iraq was merely a ruse to foment civil war in that country and, too, potentially plunge the Middle East into a wider regional war. If that, indeed, was the goal, then the Bush administration has deservedly earned the right to brandish the Mission Accomplished banner.