George W. Bush Ideas in Action: PBS GWB February Premiere

The George W. Bush Institute's "action oriented think tank" is co-producing a live audience, panel-format discussion, titled "Ideas in Action," and is planned to air on PBS in February 2010. Source: The HuffingtonPost. See a video below.

George W. Bush

[James[ Glassman, the former Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy under President Bush and one-time moderator of CNN's "Capital Gang Sunday," will lead a discussion on public policy issues in front of a live audience at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He will remain executive director of the Institute.

The first episode, a discussion on pay for performance in education, includes one panelist from the George W. Bush Institute and panelists from the Economic Policy Institute and the Progressive Policy Institute.

"The idea is to discuss a difficult issue with a balanced panel," Glassman said.

The Bush Institute has a special focus on education policy -- along with economic growth, global health, human freedom and a women's initative -- but Glassman said the shows will tackle other topics as well. The second episode, for instance, highlights the use of online tools by dissident groups, such as those active in Iran. 

In November 2009, President Bush announced the groundbreaking for his Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University, scheduled for late 2010. Here are a few of his comments:

As I tell Laura, we may be retired, but I'm not tired. I've given speeches in eight states, six countries, and five Canadian provinces. I'm writing a book that gives readers my perspective on my toughest decisions, which will hit the shelves next fall. Most importantly, Laura and I are working to build the Presidential Center here at SMU. The Center will provide a platform for us to continue our public service for the rest of our lives. Which I hope is a long time. The Center will be housed in an elegant building designed by a first class architect, Robert Stern. It will be landscaped by an innovative genius, Michael Van Valkenburgh. Inside, visitors will find three components: an archive, a museum, and a policy institute....

First, the Archive will preserve the documents and records of my Presidency. There will be about four million photos, thousands of boxes of documents, and hundreds of millions of e-mails – not one of them mine. (Laughter.)...

Second, the museum will tell the story of my Presidency through the most consequential decisions. We'll use technology and innovative design to make the exhibits interactive, educational, and relevant to the future. Visitors will see the bullhorn I used on my first visit to Ground Zero … the Oval Office … they will be able to romp in a Texas rose garden.

We have selected four initial areas of focus: education, global health, human freedom, and economic growth. Programming will start this spring under the leadership of the Institute's first Executive Director, an innovative journalist, scholar, and ambassador, Jim Glassman...

Throughout my Presidency, Laura and I met with democratic activists, defenders of religious freedom, and families of political prisoners. The Bush Institute will continue this cause by supporting advocates of freedom around the globe. As a first step we will assemble a Freedom Collection, a repository of video histories and memoirs and documents from democratic activists. The Freedom Collection will be online for the world to see. Among the leaders who have agreed to participate are former President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic; President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia; Mohsen Sazegara, the founder of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, who became an advocate for democratic change; Kang Chol Wan, who spent ten years in a North Korean gulag and authored the book, Aquariums of Pyongyang....

Read it all here.

I have a good idea of what President Obama's "Presidential Center" might feature: A collection of Chairman Mao's most probative thinking; a compendium of GLSEN's roadmap to keep American students safe; the memoirs of Barak Hussein Obama, the father of the current President, and his advocacy for communal land ownership, and government-forced confiscation of privately controlled land, and Obamas plans to make Valerie Jarrett the Dutchess of Chicago after he is officially crowned King of the U.S., rather than only thinking himself so. The focus will be the greening of agriculture and the growing of ACORNS. I can hardly wait to travel to Hawaii to visit this Presidential Center, and view the fake birth certificate, prominently displayed behind impentratable glass in the vast lobby with a video of Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. discretely flipping us the bird.





President Obama In Action