Critics try to stop Karl Rove think tank at SMU

Angered by the Bush administration's policies on war and torture, some Methodists are gearing up for what they call the final campaign to stop Southern Methodist University from housing the new George W. Bush Presidential Library and a companion conservative Institute for Democracy think tank spearheaded by political guru Karl Rove.

Although the university has approved the library deal, Andrew Weaver, a Methodist pastor and SMU alumnus from Brooklyn, N.Y., said in an interview that "the fight is not over."

Arguing that the war in Iraq is contrary to Methodist teachings, Weaver said critics are appealing the decision to the United Methodist Church's South Central Jurisdiction, which owns the land for the Bush complex.

"People are morally offended," he said, noting the 12,000 signatures gathered on a petition drive against the Bush complex.

The Bush family name is popular in the Dallas area, where the school is located, and First Lady Laura Bush is an alumna of SMU. As a result, Weaver concedes that nixing the library is probably unlikely.

"The real intensity is around the think tank," he said, speculating that Rove is using the institute to try to "re-brand George" by attaching the president's name to the "positive" name of Methodists. "Rove must be delighted," he said.

The South Central Jurisdiction meets July 15-17 in Dallas. Watch this space.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Comments

[Gloria]

The library will be filled with comic books and Lone Ranger shows. That is his caliber of intellect.

[Laura Nichols]

Well SMU gets what it deserves. Nobody had asked SMU to go on a massive campaign to get the library, despite knowing all the problems that will come with it. They would have been much better letting the library go to the backwaters of West Texas at Texas Tech or to the Baptist heartland in Baylor. Now, they have asked for trouble and have got it. Bush, Karl Rove brand of political ideology is contradictory to Methodist beliefs. The very establishment of this library will give the last laugh and put a smile on the faces of all conservative Baptists

[Thomas Terlikowski]

What are you thinking? Have you lost your minds? Shame on SMU for having Karl Rove doing anything with your school. You might as well have underwritten Himmler, Goering, Hess or Hitler. His highest value system of belief, honor and integrity is at the same level as pond scum. He's a societal cancer. He's so crooked and corrupt, they will need a corkscrew shaped coffin to get him into the ground. He's making you out to be fools in the eyes of the world. Stop the think tank or more appropriately in his case, the cesspool. "The Lie - brary"

[S. Bielfeldt]

I thought he was a Baptist.

[Wifes husband]

Reply to Terlikowski,

Funny you would be one to talk about cesspools etc....you are an American Terrorist who cant even be loyal to his own wife. While other members of your so called "team" are deployed, you are "busy" with their wives. How low is that.

To bad you have a lame duck commander who wont shut your adulterous butt up in the brigg.

You disgust me.