Tina Brown: Bush Library To Be "Halloween Shop Of Horrors," Presidency "A Chapter Of Hideous Accidents"

The Daily Beast founder and editor-in-chief Tina Brown appeared on "The Rachel Maddow Show" (guest-hosted by Alison Stewart, wife of executive producer Bill Wolff) Tuesday night. Brown's segment was focused on the 62 days remaining in the Bush presidency, and she did not mince words in dissecting the lame duck.

"One of the things that I'm told at the moment is that Bush is entirely focused right now on his legacy, on his library," she said. "That's all he really wants to talk about is his library. Because he's trying to build a legacy. But quite honestly, one can only think that that library is a Halloween House of Horrors. From the Guantanamo room to the Abu Ghraib room to the Hurricane Katrina room, this is going to be a very interesting library when it is built."

Brown also said that Bush's presidency has had "so many disasters" that, unlike previous lame duck Presidents, he is not "looking back in a mellow fashion on his Presidency, or even feeling that he has busy things to do so much as a President who is kind of punch-drunk with a series of debacles which even he — in his great denial and refusal to accept his own failures — has to accept at this point has been a chapter of hideous accidents, if you want to be charitable about it."

Watch:

Before Tina went up to 30 Rock, she celebrated the launch of The Daily Beast at New York's Pop Burger (she ducked out at 8:41 PM, says the New York Observer's John Koblin). Read his party report here.

Comments

[matthewhusseinsmith]

It's rather easy and fashionable to come out and pile on Bush now, but Bush is not responsible; this is a democracy, and not a large enough number of democrats and independents voted for Gore in Florida in 2000 and elsewhere; we all are responsible for what happened the last 8 years in this country.
Fortunately, this time around, the racist republican party which ignored Blacks, Latinos and and Asians is shooting itself in the foot, pitting real America against non real America, patriotic America against non patriotic America.

[ericmiami]

DailyViewPoints.com is organizing an effort to donate copies of the book that contains the story Bush was reading (The Pet Goat) when 9-11 happened. I found a copy on eBay and will send it when the library opens.

[dana94591]

Truly in denial! His library should be a bar with a keg!!

[frost12]

ALL THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS BELIEVE THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS

[tedmore123]

I thought it was going to be all full of the comic books, Curious George books, catalogues, magazines,
crossword puzzles, etc that he's occupied himself with while Cheney, the RNC and all the lobbyists ran the country.

[frost12]

MS BUSHINESS IS A DESPICABLE ENABLER

[Subvet]

As a submarine veteran I apologize for the submarine lookout that spotted GHW Bush floating in his raft off the Japanese occupied island where GHWB bailed out of his plane.

I'm sure if the lookout had a second chance he would have looked the other way so that Dubya would never had been born.

For the United States Navy Submarine Service.....we're sorry. Please forgive us.

[marignymitch]

These so-called 'accidents' were pre-meditated, Tina.

But no Bush liberry would be complete without a copy of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' and 'My Pet Goat'.

[raker]

Exactly. "Accidents" suggests that Bush and company were trying to do the right thing but things went amiss, In fact, the Bush debacles were planned and executed with precision. Anyone who didn't anticipate the financial collapse did so because he wanted to pretend to be ignorant. I predicted it, so Wall Street certainly did too. If Brown really thinks that the Bush disasters were a series of accidents then she isn't very perceptive.

[HARVIN]

I heard SMU(Laura's alma mater) first turned down the Bush library before accepting it.Of course SMU is in Dallas,Texas.No doubt vast sums of money were involved in the trustees change of heart.It seems to this little lost lamb that a place like Guantanamo Bay,Bergen-Belsen,Dachau or Treblinka would more faithfully preserve this President's legacy.

[vew]

Great, a national monument to Fascism.

[AbstractImp]

I want the judges from the Internationa Criminal Courts to come there for the documents they will need to indict him on war crimes.

[Skeetshooter]

Nuts!

I read the headline, hoping Tina Brown had written a Lemony Snicket parody of the Bush years.
"A Chapter of Hideous Accidents" might as well have been titled, "A Series of Unfortunately Avoidable Events."

In my parallel wish world the first volume ceremoniously bestowed upon the Bush remedial library would be titled " The Unctuous Overachiever", the next "The Ignominious Incident," followed quickly by "The Paranoid Postmortem" and "The Ill Considered Response". From there we might proceed to "The Unintended Consequence" followed like clockwork by "The Next Unintended Consequence", and soon thereafter, "The Woefully Predictable Unintended Consequence."

The last four books of the series would settle into the doldrums while the body count mounts. Titles that come to mind: , "The Flimsy Figleaf", "The Wishfull Weapons, "The Erstwhile Electorate"" and "The Elusive End"

I miss the National Lampoon; they would have jumped on this one the moment they hear "Bush" and "library" in the same conversation.

[RobinLandseadel]

Don't forget "The Chums of Chance and the Evil Half-Wit" from Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day." You've got that Lemony Snicket thing down cold.

[DRaymond]

The GWB library will also be unique in that it will include an endowment for a permanent 'think tank' to 'examine the impact of the George W Bush presidency'. In other words decades, even centuries from now there will be 'historians' whose job it will be to spin positive information about Bush.

[lookfar]

Actually, if you look at from dubya's point of view, he accomplished a great deal. His goals were to deliver to his elite base, a fortune and power unmatched in history. And to deliver a changed motto for the American people, from "We the people" to "wee little people". We will see in this next government if we are able to rise to the challenge of "change" and repay our patriots of the past with a self governed country for our children. Pray we are up to the task.

[TomTheAlmostUgly]

Two thoughts about the GWB Library:

1) It should be white on the outside, to match the whitewashing that undoubtedly will be going on inside.

2) The GWB Library should be built in Waco, at the Branch Davidian compound. That's the place where sixty people died because their leader, David Koresh, couldn't admit he'd made a mistake. Why does that make it the perfect site for the GWB Library? Because more than four thousand people have died uselessly in Bushie's vanity war in Iraq, which he refuses to admit was started because he misread the intel.

[Scoppertop]

Misread the Intel???? More like 'invented' the Intel.

[crayola 08]

accident number 1 was his being appointed president

[ErnestineBass]

Accident #1 was his conception. Think about it...

[bboyy]

a copy of the constituion would be nice, he could finally read it.

[DANISMOM]

bboyy, you just hit the nail right on the head. the constitution has been completely trampled on by this administration. maybe bushie and his cronies can take a fieldtrip there together when its all said and done.