(a) “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”

(b) “Tribal sovereignty means that it’s sovereign. You’re a—you’ve been given sovereignty and you’re viewed as a sovereign entity.”

(c) “Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilize their country, and we will help them rid Iraq of these killers.”

(d) “Isn’t that the ultimate homeland security—standing up and defending marriage?”

Who’s who?

2. Alberto Gonzales.
3. Tony Robinson.
4. Steven Galson.
5. Thomas B. Griffith.
6. Devon Largio.
7. Terry Holt.

(a) The Bush federal-appeals-court nominee who practiced law in Utah for four years without a state license.

(b) The college student whose honors thesis found that the Bush Administration offered twenty-three different rationales for the Iraq war.

(c) The federal drug official who rejected the 23-4 recommendation of an advisory panel and refused to allow a morning-after birth-control pill to be sold over the counter.

(d) The former Army interrogation instructor who said of the Abu Ghraib prison photographs, “Frat hazing is worse than this.”

(e) The author of the 2002 memo to George W. Bush which said that the war on terrorism “renders quaint” certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

(f) The Bush campaign official who referred to stem-cell researchers who oppose restrictions on their work as “mad scientists out of control.”

8. Complete George W. Bush’s statement: “The reason ______________.”

(a) I can’t stop saying ‘the American people are safer’ [is] because the American people are safer

(b) I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and Al Qaeda [is] because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda

(c) people all over the world think the United States government authorized torture [is] because the United States government did authorize torture

(d) Jenna stuck her tongue out at those reporters [is] those reporters deserved to have their tongues stuck out at

9. What caused Dick Cheney to say to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), “Fuck yourself”?

(a) Leahy had said, “So, Dick, you didn’t think you needed to check with the boss before ordering planes full of civilians to be shot down?”

(b) Leahy had made a comment comparing Cheney’s “quintuple-deferment war record” with John Kerry’s heroics.

(c) Leahy had pointed out how many no-bid contracts had gone to Halliburton.

(d) Leahy had said, “Cheney’s turned into a James Bond villain.”

10. Three of these statements describe Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Which one describes his boss, Donald Rumsfeld?

(a) He publicly understated the number of deaths of United States soldiers in Iraq by more than two hundred at a congressional hearing.

(b) He scoffed at the notion that prisoners’“quality of life” was compromised at Abu Ghraib, saying, “Whether they have a PX or a good restaurant is not the issue.”

(c) He told a House committee hearing that so many negative stories are coming out of Iraq because reporters are “afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors.”

(d) He conceded, after a good deal of questioning by a Senate committee, that putting a bag over someone’s head for seventy-two hours was “not humane.”

11. In May, the White House announced that George W. Bush would deliver five weekly speeches intended to shore up support for his Iraq policies. How many of the five did he deliver before abandoning the effort?

(a) One. (c) Three.
(b) Two. (d) Four.

12. Which statement did Ron Reagan not make?

(a) “Dad . . . never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians: wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage.”

(b) “My father didn’t know George W. Bush from Adam.”

(c) “Cheney brought my mother up to the casket . . . she has glaucoma and has trouble seeing. There were steps, and he left her there. He just stood there, letting her flounder. I don’t think he’s a mindful human being.”

(d) “My father wouldn’t have had to prove how macho he was by waving around Saddam’s gun.”

13. Where was the Cheney rally at which people were refused admission unless they signed this statement: “I, (full name) . . . do herby [sic] endorse George W. Bush for re-election of the United States”?

(a) Missouri. (c) Nevada.
(b) Michigan. (d) New Mexico.

14. How did George W. Bush pronounce the name of Abu Ghraib prison, the site of the abuses that he claimed to have been “disgusted of” and “disgraced about”?

(a) “Abugah-rayp.”
(b) “Abu-gareff.”
(c) “Abu-garon” and “Abu-garah.”
(d) All of the above.

Answers:

Afterward, Sadir had a message for U.S. president George W. Bush, who is using the Iraqi Olympic team in his latest re-election campaign advertisements.

In those spots, the flags of Iraq and Afghanistan appear as a narrator says, “At this Olympics there will be two more free nations — and two fewer terrorist regimes.”

“Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign,” Sadir told SI.com through a translator, speaking calmly and directly. “He can find another way to advertise himself.”

“We will not sit [with arms folded] to wait for what others will do to us,” Iran’s defence minister, Rear-Admiral Ali Shamkhani told Al-Jazeera TV yesterday when asked if Iran would respond to a US attack on its nuclear facilities.

But if the Bush presidency has been about anything, it’s been about breaking free of the fetters of the traditional past. It was the Bush presidency, after all, that did away with the fussy old notion about the U.S. not engaging in unilateral acts of first-strike aggression against sovereign nations. It was George Bush, after all, who redefined a “conservative” as someone who believed in enormous deficits. And it was the Bush administration that accelerated the separation of language from action by constantly saying one thing while meaning another; i.e. “Clear Skies” initiatives, and “No Child Left Behind.”

Given all that, it may turn out that the George W. Bush Presidential Library (or, perhaps, “Liberry”) will be equally surprising in the ways it breaks with tradition, and with meaning.

But one tradition that probably won’t be broken is the time-honored practice of commemorating presidential bon mots by chiseling them in marble. Immortal ideas expressed in the president’s own immortal language.

Consider what might be chiseled in stone over the door to the education wing of the Bush Liberry, for instance. “Is Our Children Learning?” would make a most fitting presidential quote emblazoned above the portal to the Bush Hall of Lurning, a monument to the Bush administration’s heroic struggle to “leave no child behind.” Or, if a more timeless quality is required for future visitors to the Bush Liberry, the president’s observation from Jan. 23, 2004, might suffice: “The illiteracy level of our children are appalling.”

The wing of the Bush Liberry dedicated to the administration’s contributions to the space program could be entered by passing under the motto: “Astronauts … courageous spacial entrepreneurs.”

Heading west from the Space Wing of the Bush Liberry, visitors may find themselves approaching the Compassion Wing. What words would better express the President’s compassionate nature than these?: “There’s only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops, I’ve got an additional responsibility to hug and that’s me and I know what it’s like.”

Beyond compassion, history will want to record the visionary and far- sighted energy policy the administration promoted. Over the entry-way to the Energy Wing of the Liberry, we might find the following Bush words: “We need an energy bill that encourages consumption.”

In the wing devoted to Bush’s bold statesmanship, the visitor may well find these words, spoken about Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the war with Iraq: ” … you disarm, or we will.”

Over the archway to the Hall of Labor, we may find these Bush words: “We want anybody who can find work to be able to find work.” A fitting commemoration of the administration’s tireless efforts on behalf of America’s work force.

In the wing of the Liberry devoted to Bush, the partisan warrior, future visitors might find the following timeless words, uttered in an attempt to fight back the nefarious work of the Democrats: “They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it’s some kind of federal program.”

There is certain to be a wing of the Liberry devoted to George Bush, the dreamer.

That wing could be introduced with these words: ” … America — a literate country and a hopefuller country.” Or, in that same vein, try to imagine these words set in stone: ” My job is to, like, think beyond the immediate.” What could be more visionary?

At this point in time, the George W. Bush Presidential Liberry exists only in the imagination, but it won’t be long before such a place becomes a reality. Future visitors are, however, encouraged to bring their own books.

And crayons.