New George W. Bush Presidential Center will include -- surprise! -- some Texas style

 
Much like the man who inspires it, the new George W. Bush Presidential Center will be a combination of Texas style and East Coast tradition. That’s the word on the renderings of the 225-square-foot, $250-million center.

The plans for the center, to be built at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, were released Wednesday and, in the words of Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, “carry no hint of the swagger, bravado or taste for confrontation that Bush was known for as president.” Among the Texas touches will be pecan wood paneling and, outside, wildflowers, bluebonnets and prairie.

On The Times’ Culture Monster blog, Hawthorne writes:

Designed by New York’s Robert A.M. Stern, arguably the country’s leading historicist architect, the library is a handsome, contextual piece of architecture wrapped in Texas limestone (which may sound like a euphemism, like "Texas tea," but isn’t) and red brick. Though on its main facades it uses classical themes in a mostly abstract way, rather than literally, it is very much meant to complement SMU’s predominantly Georgian-style landmarks.

A statement released by the center sums up the blend of styles this way:

The light-filled building is both presidential and welcoming, includes elements that evoke both Texas and Washington, and will house the three components of the George W. Bush Presidential Center: an Archive, a Museum and a policy Institute.

Check out Hawthorne’s full article for more on the center, plus more renderings of the buildings and site.

We can’t help wondering if the center will include an exhibit on weapons of mass destruction. It could even be interactive -- visitors could wander the complex and never find the WMD. Just a thought. 

-- Steve Padilla

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Upper photo: Artist rendering of the Bush Presidential Center. Credit: Robert A.M. Stern

Lower photo: Former First Lady Laura Bush at news conference Wednesday announcing plans for the new center. Credit: Associated Press 

Sarah Palin's 'Going Rogue': A powerful testament to a good woman's endurance in a mean world of politics

"Reviewing" Sarah Palin's new book is quite an assignment. There are a lot of pages. And not many pictures. But here goes:

Despite the involvement of a professional ghostwriter, Republican ex-Gov. Palin has penned one of the most powerful pieces of personal or political literature in a generation of American books. It's "Going Rogue: An American Life" (HarperCollins, $28.99).

Her behind-the-scenes memoir -- you may have noticed a photo of the cover above -- is flying off store shelves across the country even as you read this. (Now, see video below.)

It's a 413-page masterwork of personal and political insight that makes Dick Cheney's upcoming memoir look like a Golden Book. Based on the first 48 hours of....

... sales reports, HarperCollins has already ordered additional printings. And Palin is destined to become a millionaire. Again.

With her trademark down-to-earth tone and gee-gollys, Palin takes her readers inside a compelling personal quest from her loving family's upbringing through the....

Embarrassed Republican Party opts out of abortion coverage for employees

Since 1991, the National Republican Committee has offered its employees a health care policy from Cigna that includes coverage for elective abortions. Given the GOP's major push to keep abortion coverage out of President Obama's health care reform bill, the news of the party's own insurance policy  -- which Politico broke yesterday -- came as something of an embarrassment.

“We were not aware of this, obviously, and this will, of course, be fixed,” said James Bopp Jr., a Republican National Committee member from Indiana and an attorney who serves as counsel to the National Right to Life organization. “I think Chairman Steele will see to it that that’s the case.”

That would be Michael Steele (pictured above), chairman of the RNC and a longtime abortion foe, who said in a statement today, "Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose. I don't know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled."

Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak rallied anti-abortion forces in the House this week to enact an amendment that would ensure no government funds go to abortion coverage. The bill is now in the Senate, where pro-abortion forces are galvanizing their supporters to reverse the vote.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: RNC Chairman Michael Steele. Credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images North America

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First peek: What's in Sarah Palin's new book

(UPDATE: An updated paragraph has been added below.)

Not that anybody even cares or clicked here on purpose or will gobble up every word because Sarah Palin isn't even Alaska's Republican governor anymore and her GOP presidential ticket lost last year big-time and critics made a lot of fun of her habits and family and her clothing and the way she talks and didn't get an abortion and then quit as Alaska's governor.

And she's got no chance of succeeding in national politics because she's a dim conservative and no one cares anything about her to the point that her book publisher, HarperCollins, only printed 1.5 million advance copies of "Going Rogue," coming out next week.

But first Monday comes an appearance on TV with Oprah, who became a media billionairess by simply boring her audience with what they didn't want to see. (BTW, that interview was taped in Chicago today and Palin reportedly did not say no when asked if she wanted to do a TV show.)

(UPDATE: 7:18 p.m. On her Facebook page tonight Palin reported that Oprah was "hospitable and gracious," the audience "warm, energized and (no doubt) curious"" and the two women enjoyed the "great conversation" so much they went over time; the extra chatter will go on Oprah.com.)

However, just in case there are one or two people out there who remain interested in the ...

Sarah Palin's roguish book tour: The details seep out

It starts in Michigan.

Our good buddy Josh Painter over at the Texas for Salin Palin blog, a must-bookmark for SP fans, has assembled the schedule for the ex-gov's upcoming book sales/autographing tour and we have some of it below.

You'll note that the tour starts in Michigan. Get it? Oh, c'mon, sure you do!

Longtime Ticket readers will recall it was the stumbling McCain campaign's decision to, in effect, forfeit Michigan to the Obama Democrats a year ago and stop campaigning there.

Which caused McCain's Republican pitbull partner to grumble about giving up anywhere so easily.

Which caused those brave McCain staffers to anonymously leak their own grumblings that Palin was "going rogue."

Which provided the rebounding political celebrity with her best-selling book title -- "Going Rogue: An American Life" -- which so far has 1.5 million copies in print.

And that's before the Oprah show on Nov. 16. There'll be a five-part interview with....

Palin -- not welcome in Virginia's or New Jersey's governor races?

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin may be the hottest ticket around for conservatives who have made her memoir, "Going Rogue," a bestseller on Amazon.com even before it is published. And she may still be the heartthrob choice of evangelicals hoping she'll run for president in 2012.

But apparently, less than one month before the election, Republican candidates in hotly contested gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia have declined her help.

“The governor offered her assistance with both races,” adviser Meg Stapleton told Politico.com. “The ball is in their court.”

The rebuff makes sense.

In Virginia, where Palin wowed crowds during the 2008 election, Republican Bob McDonnell is now courting the middle -- the vote-rich suburbs just outside of Washington, D.C., which in recent elections have helped tilt the state blue.

And in New Jersey, Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine has closed the gap with his Republican opponent, Chris Christie, who likewise is running toward the middle where the state's mostly blue voters reside.

With the two off-year elections being viewed as a referendum on President Obama's popularity, neither Republican candidate seems to want to risk losing the independent voters who view Palin as a firebrand.

“Look, if Mitt Romney shows up in Virginia Beach, the Virginian-Pilot is covering that,” a Republican political strategist told Politico.  “If Sarah Palin shows up there, the damn New York Times is covering it.”

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: J.D. Pooley / Getty Images

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Town hall attacks on health care -- mob rule or democracy in action?

It's getting ugly out there.

Opponents of health care reform are disrupting town halls from coast to coast. As Ticket reported last week, protesters in Maryland hung a congressman in effigy. In Texas, anti-reformers held a sign showing a tombstone with Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett's name on it. And in Missouri, police arrested six people outside a health care forum with Democratic Rep. Russ Carnahan after protesters organized by the conservative St. Louis Tea Party clashed with pro-reform union workers.

Fighting back, the White House has set up a website -- whitehouse.gov/Reality Check -- and a new email address -- flag@whitehouse.gov -- so supporters can pass along rumors that seem, well, fishy. "Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the Internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to 'uncover' the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions," the White House blog said.

On the Hill, normally quiet during August, Democrats have set up a war room where members of Congress under attack can call for help. With protesters urging their supporters to disrupt the meetings -- “Become a part of the mob!” said a banner posted on the website of Fox talk-show host Sean Hannity. “Attend an Obama Care Townhall near you!” -- the Democratic National Committee is urging backers to skip the town halls and visit their representatives in their offices.

House Minority Leader John Boehner argues that the disruptions are evidence of "the widespread anger millions of Americans are feeling this summer toward Democrat-controlled Washington." "The Republican National Committee responded with an e-mail titled "THE MOB? Hey Democrats, They're Called The American People."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to be having trouble deciding what she thinks of all this. As the Ticket has reported, last week she said the protesters were exercising their democratic rights. Asked if they represented grass-roots opposition, she dismissed their cause as "Astroturf."

But today, in an op-ed with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer in USA Today, she writes, "These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades."

With President Obama scheduled to conduct his own town hall in New Hampshire tomorrow, let us know what you think -- is this democracy in action or mob rule?

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: South Florida Tea Party

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Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says she won't seek reelection

Sarah Palin, the GOP’s embattled former vice presidential candidate, will not run again for governor of Alaska, prompting speculation that she is considering a presidential race in 2012.

Palin made the announcement at her hometown of Wasilla.

[Update: At a news conference before the Fourth of July weekend, Palin said she would step aside as governor and be replaced by Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, according to local television reports. Palin took no questions.]

-- Michael Muskal

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Sarah Palin goes into overtime in dispute over Letterman's crude joke

The battle between media heavyweights Gov. Sarah Palin and comedian David Letterman is going into overtime, beyond the usually allotted 15 minutes of fame.

Appearing this morning on NBC’s “Today” show, the Alaska governor and favorite of the conservative wing of the GOP again demanded that Letterman apologize to women for a joke the television host made about one of her daughters getting "knocked up." Those wanting a quick look back, should check out our original post.

Letterman has said that the joke about a Palin daughter getting pregnant by a Yankee baseball player was in poor taste (probably not the first such bad joke Letterman has told and arguably not the most distasteful).

Still, Palin contends that the target was her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, who was the only daughter with her at Yankee Stadium last weekend. That makes the questionable quip a comment about statutory rape. It’s “a degrading comment about a young woman,” Palin said this morning. “And I would hope that people would start really rising up and not accepting this.”

 “It’s no wonder girls have such low self-esteem in America when a comedian can make a remark like this,” the former vice presidential candidate said.

Now, in normal circumstances, a slugfest between a talk show host, who is facing his own problems from a new competitor at NBC’s "The Tonight Show," and a former candidate for vice president (this society doesn’t even care about vice presidents when they are in office) would be about as interesting as a healthcare policy debate between athletes on steroids. 

But hang in, there are real concerns here.

Palin is a potential presidential candidate who can’t afford to be fighting with anyone in her party, which polls show is about as popular as ants at a July Fourth picnic. Even worse, none can say who actually speaks for Republicans, fractured into more pieces than taffy dropped from the roof of a building. 

The Alaska governor and her allies argued during the campaign that the media were an enemy, so who better to attack than a media icon like Letterman, with a hip (read: liberal) audience.

The big complaint by Palin and others was that the media never took her seriously, in part because she was a woman, and set verbal traps for her. In truth, there were numerous comparisons of her to Tina Fey and much of the reporting dealt with her gaffes in interviews or her use of the winsome wink during her debate with then-Sen., now Vice President Joe Biden.

So fighting a man over a demeaning comment about women makes political sense as well as giving Palin a well-publicized shot at being a mother protecting her young; she famously said during her Republican convention speech that the only difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull was lipstick. This is a win-win for all of her constituencies.

And, to be honest, NBC doesn't mind stoking an embarrassing controversy involving its CBS competition.

Too much, you say, about a joke that at most went bad like three-day mayonnaise? 

Perhaps. But television is today’s arena of public debate in society – and it is not just the Sunday morning talk shows. It is every show, every network, every celebrity, every politician. Why else would President Obama, no slouch at the ratings game himself, do Jay Leno’s show or joke about Conan O’Brien? 

Not even today’s switch to digital, which could throw about 2 million people out of the free television arena, will change the truth that television portrayal is as important to politics as it is to advertising – and some would say that is the same thing.

You betcha, mister.

– Michael Muskal

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Aging man, 62, jokes about girl, 14 (Letterman on Willow Palin) update

(UPDATE: This item has been updated below.)

Maybe it's just the tempting ratings window of no longer going up against NBC's Juggernaut Jay and being the also-ran of late-night television.

But CBS' David Letterman told a real howler on nationwide TV Monday night that drew gasps from some parents and now a scathing rebuttal from the nation's most famous pitbull hockey mom -- and dad.

Noting that Alaska's Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and her daughter attended a New York Yankees game over the weekend with famous Yankee fan Rudy Giuliani, Letterman said:

One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.

Letterman, until recently an unwed father, has often made his disdain clear for the former GOP VP nominee, who had several damaging interviews with CBS during the general election campaign last September.

But this is the first time in memory he's taken on the teenage daughter of the governor, on the left in the above photo.

In a statement to Fox News, Palin called the comments "inappropriate" and "sexually perverted" and ones Letterman would not "dare make" about anyone else's daughter.

The governor added:

"Acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone's daughter, contributes to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others."

Willow's father, Todd, added his thoughts:

Any ‘jokes’ about raping my 14-year-old are despicable. Alaskans know it, and I believe the rest of the world knows it, too.

So far, the "Late Show" has declined comment -- or even another joke.

(UPDATE: 5:06 p.m.Pacific Taping tonight's program in New York, Letterman made for him a lengthy explanation or clarification, though no apology. He said that his "joke" Monday about Palin's (unnamed) daughter getting "knocked up" by a professional baseball player was aimed at Palin's daughter, Bristol, who is 18, not Willow, who is 14 and attended the baseball game. "I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex with a 14-year-old girl...Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes."

(He then invited Palin on his program. Which might really help Letterman's ratings, at least that night, against his new late-night competition, Conan O'Brien. Oh, come to think of it: That's where Palin should really go for a celebrated chat -- over to NBC. Not that ratings revenge would ever cross the mind of the governor, a former TV reporter.)

(2d UPDATE: 7:05 p.m. Pacific "The Late Show" just e-mailed The Ticket a longer set of excerpts from tonight's program, which we are publishing below in their entirety.)

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Office of the Alaska Governor; CBS (2008)

Excerpts from "The Late Show with David Letterman" June 10, 2009:

“We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter, the 18-year-old girl, who is – her name is Bristol, that’s right, and so, then, now they’re upset with me…”

“These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record. It has never happened. I don’t think it’s funny. I would never think it was funny. I wouldn’t put it in a joke…”

“…Governor Palin, if you’re watching, I would like you to consider coming to New York City – you and Todd as my guests, or leave Todd at home – I’d love to have you on the show. It’d be exciting…”

“All right, so there, I hope I’ve cleared part of this up. Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes. Did I suggest that it was okay for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No.”