In an unusually frank moment of open bias against President Bush, The Chronicle of Higher Education sponsored a cheeky contest for readers to sketch, on the backs of envelopes, designs for Bush’s future presidential library.

Now that the George W. Bush era is almost over, the world needs a place to archive the legacy of the 43rd president. That place will be Southern Methodist University, in a building designed by Robert A.M. Stern. The building will probably cost $500-million.

The designs are quite pretty, if not tragically ideologized and terribly juvenile critiques of the Bush administration, like something a really talented eighth-grader would come up with.  But they are fun to look at for that reason.

I’m not sure how best to describe this essay.  It’s called “Secrecy and Manhood,” and it’s at Commonplace, a magazine of American history.  Joseph S. Bonica, a history professor, writes about the political romance of secrets, from the Revolutionary-era Society of the Cincinnati to the present-day Bush administration.  The essay suggests that Bush team, known for keeping information off the table, may be doing it out of a traditional, privileged, Republican virility and not to hide bad deeds.  And it seems to be pretty politically nuetral.

Perhaps it should not surprise us that [Bush’s] official reticence has aroused intense suspicion. After all, as Walter Cronkite observed, “you keep secrets from people when you don’t want them to know the truth.” Yet the persistence of the secret as the Bush administration’s central organizational strategy, despite constant threats of investigation by Congress and the press, might suggest something more at work than the practical logistics of hiding embarrassing facts.

Nobody likes secrets except the people who can be hurt from their telling, but this guy’s essay is a real trip and suggests more complex readings of the Bush ethos.

Approaching a new US administration in the near future, Europe will need to relearn how to play nice with the US, and vice versa.  Henry Kissinger gives the German people a little advice on this one.

By this time next year, we will see the beginning of a new administration. We will then discover to what extent the Bush administration was the cause or the alibi for European-American disagreements. Right now, many Europeans hide behind the unpopularity of President Bush […]

Later, Kissinger admits Bush made a few mistakes.

But I do believe that George W. Bush has correctly understood the global challenge we are facing, the threat of radical Islam, and that he has fought that battle with great fortitude. He will be appreciated for that later.

I’d like to think so.

U.S. News & World Report senior writer Michael Barone has posted a trenchant editorial at Townhall.com: “Lessons from the Surge.”

Lesson One:  Just about no mission is impossible for the United States military.

Lesson Two: Societies can be more easily transformed from the bottom up than the top down.

Lesson Three: It doesn’t pay to bet against America.

Read Barone’s exposition here. Thoughts?

Last night, after the Lessons and Carols service at my church, a friend said, “Hey, a buddy from work told me to ask you all at WORLD to stop writing all that pro-Huckabee stuff.”  He and his friend, I think, like Ron Paul, and that Huckabee is no good.  I’m undecided, but I have to say, Huckabee, in many respects, seems like just a more well-spoken, modest version of the current president.  When President Bush was running in 2000, he ran as a plain-spoken, sometimes funny candidate (like Huckabee now).  He had little foreign policy experience (also like Huckabee).  And he seemed to be a non-politician in a field of Washington regulars (yet again, like Huckabee).  Finally, he appealed to Evangelicals and Good Country People as folkish and regular (Huckabee). 

If conservatives have learned something from Bush, it’s that plain-spoken regular nice guys might make good neighbors, but not necessarily the best presidents.  Here’s Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Huckabee.  Is there really a Huckabee/Bush similarity, or am I just looking for reasons not to like Mike?

Bush’s hosting of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks seems a fair bid to keep his presidency relevant.  This piece suggests three other ways he can stay relevant.  Here’s the gist:

1. Bush should express concern over the national debt and do something about the dollar.

2. Bush should do something that makes the world like us more.

3. Bush should “take a comprehensive and believable pro-environment stand.”

I like #1.  He’s got no time for #2.  He won’t do #3.

It’s a legacy that will probably haunt George W. Bush: He ranks as the biggest spending president since Lyndon B. Johnson. Accounting for inflation, discretionary spending increased by an average annual rate of 5.3 percent during Bush’s first six years. Sure, the defense budget accounts for some of this, but the fact remains that Bush never vetoed a single GOP spending bill.

Now, with a little over a year left of his presidency, Bush is attempting to remake his image as a fiscal conservative. He’s promised to unleash a veto for any fiscal proposals that aren’t necessary. Whether he stands by that promise remains to be seen.

Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his global-warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” The media calls it sweet revenge for Gore and a blow to Bush. A White House spokesman says Bush is “happy” for Gore and the UN climate panel that shared the prize with him.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama accuses Hillary Clinton of flip-flopping on Iran.

The New York Police Department is finding out who strung up nooses in two public places this week: one on the office door of a Columbia University professor, and one at a post office close to Ground Zero.

Teenager Andrew Larochelle wins a fight with the U.S. Capitol Architect. Larochelle wanted to fly a flag over the United States Capitol in his grandfather’s honor. When he found the word “God” missing from his flag certificate, he and lawmakers demanded that the architect lift a ban on religious and political messages.

Authorities stopped another teenager’s plan to open fire in a Philadelphia school. The prosecutor said his mother bought the weapons and bomb-making materials for him.

Speaking of poor parenting, a judge accepts a plea agreement in an abortion kidnapping case. Two parents allegedly tied up their pregnant daughter and tried to take her out of state for an abortion. The parents pled guilty to misdemeanor assault and disorderly conduct charges, and the district attorney dropped felony kidnapping charges.

A radio show that welcomes “godless infidels, out-of-the-closet atheists and happy heathens” goes national this week. Ron Reagan, son of the former president, will talk about his atheism.

In international news, Turkey threatens Congress with “serious repercussions” if it calls Turkish killings genocide. President Vladimir Putin continues to clash with U.S. officials over missile defense, deepening distrust between the two nations.