Screenland
8 6.12.
Above and opening page: Screen grabs from Associated Presscarefully curated hagiography, amid
stately colonnades and a burbling
fountain. Visitors enter into a 67-foot-
tall atrium called Freedom Hall; the
Defending Freedom Table is a large touch-
screen where museumgoers can view
maps and photographs from the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. There’s a statue of
Bush and his father gazing purposefully
into the middle distance, and a statue of
Barney and Miss Beazley, George and
Laura Bush’s Scottish terriers, striking
a similar pose. In the library, scholars
can pore through offi cial White House
documents to extract fuller, less fl attering
stories of the Bush years. But the public-
facing image is a portrait in whitewash.
On the library’s website, an online exhibit
about the Sept. 11 attacks and their
aftermath hails Bush for demonstrating
‘‘the strength of American resolve.’’
It was a surprise, therefore, when a
scathing indictment of the former pres-
ident was issued recently at a Bush Cen-
ter event. Even more unexpected was
the source of this blunt talk: Bush him-
self. During brief remarks at a forum on
elections and democracy, held last month,
Bush stumbled over his prepared text.
He was discussing the Russian president
Vladimir Putin’s suppression of dissent.
‘‘The result is an absence of checks and
balances in Russia,’’ Bush said. ‘‘And the
decision of one man to launch a wholly
unjustifi ed and brutal invasion of Iraq. I
mean — of Ukraine. Iraq, too. Anyway.’’Footage of the error spread quickly. On
social media, the ‘‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’’
theme song became the soundtrack for
Bush’s blunder. Late-night hosts weighed
in. (‘‘That is a refreshingly lighthearted
confession to war crimes,’’ Stephen Col-
bert said.) Many commentators diag-
nosed a Freudian slip: the ex-president’s
guilty conscience had reared up, unbid-
den. In any case, the Bush video was a
novelty: Rarely has a world leader issued
so bald a ‘‘confession’’ about a matter of
such historical consequence.
It was also a genre piece. Gaff e videos
are ubiquitous clickbait, and politicians’
bloopers are among the most popular
fodder. Bush, famously, is a gaff e spe-
cialist, the purveyor of scrambled-hashPhoto illustration by Vanessa SabaThis was a faux
pas that told
uncomfortable
truths.