Laura Bush unveils plans to beautify Pennsylvania Avenue ($26 Million)

[Nambe]

Knight Ridder Newspapers

First lady Laura Bush promised better security and a lovelier look from the parklike enhancements she unveiled Monday for the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House.

Tourists - now channeled by highway-style concrete barriers and heavy planters - will be able to move more freely when the $26 million project is complete in 2004. A new plaza, paved in a composite of gray- and pink-toned granite, will replace the avenue's unsightly asphalt. Slender granite benches and an arcade of disease-resistant elm trees will line the plaza. At night, twin- headed street lamps, originally designed for Washington in 1923, will illuminate the promenade. ---

Construction is due to start in January, and developers said the project would be completed in time for the next presidential inauguration. ---

[FlashHarry]

1. Isn't that just precious!

Well, I guess that is woman's work. Grr.

[Blue_State_Elitist]

2. FUCK PICKLES

How about she takes that money and pays for the gas for the soldiers to come back. How about she takes that money and pays for an organ transplant. How about she takes that money and pays for my education. How about she jumps off a cliff.

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TeeYiYi]

52. . . . and a jar full of FUCK PICKLES.

re: What you meant was, "How about she jumps off a cliff with a rope tied to her husband
and Rummy and Condi and Cheney and Wolfowitz and Perle and ...."

TYY

[NewYorkerfromMass]

54. is THAT why she's called pickles?

because she doesn't just eat them? :puke:

[Brucey]

3. Maybe

a promenade and literacy campaign will solve all the ruination that Stump and company have caused!

[Rose Siding]

4. More access for protests

:evilgrin:

[ewagner]

5. aaaahhhh yeeeesssss!

beautify the first amendment zones!!!!

[grasswire]

6. while she's at it....

....maybe she could take over sweeping the WH porches, too. Yeah?

[KamaAina]

7. The best way to beautify Pennsylvania Avenue...

is to get Pickles' and Whistle-Ass' ugly mugs the heck off of it as soon as possible!

Oh yes, and their cardboard cutouts, too :-)

[Tansy_Gold]

8. And a coupla one-way tickets from DC to TX. . . .

. . . .would cost a helluva lot less, even first class, with the balance to go toward, oh, fixin' up some schools or hospitals or somethin' really worthwhile.

[The Zanti Regent]

16. Is Noelle gonna walk the street for business?

On second thought, that may not be beautification!

[UpInArms]

19. I would think that the WH and Penn Ave

would definitely be enhanced by a "face change" - and their faces would look so lovely behind bars.

[Whoa_Nelly]

9. In reading the headline

first thought was Pickles was going to get her ugly butt off the streets once and for all. :kick:

[Pastiche423]

10. How nice of laura

to have thought of a project that will be completed in time for the next Democratic presidential inauguration.

OTOH, :wtf: is the money coming from? Will there be an accountability?

[PartyPooper]

11. The only way to "beautify" Pennsylvania Avenue

is to vote next year to get her husband's ugly ass out of the White House!

:dem:

[Malva Zebrina]

12. People are dead and dying in Afganistan and Iraq because of her husband's

lies and she ignores her previous committments to the "liberation" of Afganistan women and is now going to "beautify" the view to her house instead. She has nothing to say about all of the children her husband killed--why they could have been reading the very hungry catapillar by now if they were alive, Laura.

She has just spent five weeks in dry, desolate, Crawdad pig farm doing absolutely, and I mean absolutely, nothing but sit by the pool, smoke, eat bon bons and read paperback novels, probably, and now she is going to redecorate the streets around her white house in DC!! How charming--not. If her taste in clothes is any indication, I would say that Laura better had not take on such a project--she dresses like a cloistered nun in dull grey habit and our house and it's surroundings deserve better than this joker faced, of a Stepford, fat assed boob of an dumbass, wife of a dumbass, trying to "fix it"

[youngred]

13. Great more improvements right outside my window!

I love living on penn Ave NW!

saw The devil himself asleep in marine one the other day

[Gin]

14. geez..these people sure know how to spend our money.....

hey * spend your own damn money to beautify Pennsylvania Ave..you guys are fouling the place up, so clean up your own mess with your own money..not mine!

[davidinalameda]

15. are they moving out

that would do wonders to make the place better!

:bounce:

[JitterbugPerfume]

17. Ladybird Johnson and Jackie Kennedy

she AIN't !!!!!

the only beautification SHE needs is a diet and a make over

that is one dowdy woman!!!

[Paschall]

39. Lady Bird fought to "Beautify America"

But I guess with the Treasury in the toilet and ScroogeCo in power, all we can beautify is a few blocks of Washington, DC.



Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

[kskiska]

40. Laura Bush is only interested

in beautifying what she can see from her window.

[maxanne]

18. her best move for beautification

is out of town.

This woman has execrable taste, and should not be allowed to "beautify" anything. She can't even dress decently, fa chrissake.
:puke:

[UpInArms]

20. what?? Don't you "like" her polyester pantsuits??

:evilgrin:

[Chovexani]

43. Oh man

I would love to see the Fab Five tear into her...

[EFF BrandyWine]

58. That's a wonderful idea! The Fab Five!

They could take her to a salon and do something about her hair...then they could take her to a shop and dress her up in clothes that don't hark back to the '30's...(Pickle's dresses are called "garments")! Then they could take her to the hypnotist who could plant a suggestion about...uh, never mind.

edited for stupid error

[notadmblnd]

73. How about we

submit her name to TLCs' What Not to Wear?

[PartyPooper]

23. But, she will be forever remembered after she leaves Dodge

Isn't there a "First Ladies" fashion exhibit in D.C.? I recall that once upon a time there was one...which had the all of the First Ladies bedecked in inauguration gowns...is that still around? I remember seeing something about this on TV about 20-25 years ago.

:D

[radfringe]

21. marie antoin-pickles?

$25-million would employ 520 people at $50k for one year....

is this the updated version of Marie antoinette? Let them plant flowers????

[MaineDem]

22. Good Lord!!!

Their timing sure sucks!!!

Let's get people back to work and get the soldiers out of Iraq and get prescription drug coverage to the elderly before we "beautify" anything!!!

This is appalling.

[DemBones DemBones]

24. Yes, the TIMING is atrocious. All through reading this thread,

I was thinking, well, yes, it's terrible but other first ladies have spent money on beautification projects -- are we being unfair? Then I saw your post about their TIMING and I knew the answer! This was incredibly stupid to roll out thie project when we've just been handed the bill for Dubya's Incredible Iraqi Misadventure.

[ignatius]

26. Last year I had to go to Washinton DC for business. On my return

flight I met a wonderful couple from Arizona who had been to a conference on affordable prescriptions for seniors. Hillary was one of the speakers. When she was asked about the government sponsered health care program she had worked on she said the insurance companies had over 600 lobbyists.

Imagine that, more lobbyusts than members of congress.

I agree the timing was disgusting. With millions out of work, with no health care, and bankruptcies at record highs,she..her husband..and the entire BFEE ought to just hide behind closed doors.

I can think of no administration in my lifetime(I am 52)more vile than this one.

[Bandit]

42. Actually this would put a few people to work and of all things being done

in our name this is one I can go along with the most. I enjoy seeing things spruced up especially if it puts even a few people to work. I know Bush* or Cheney aren't going to do any work. It is just too bad that there isn't enough money for more of these type projects. FDR did exactly the same thing, only in all of America not just outside his front window. At least she is beautifying instead of destroying like her husband.

[sandnsea]

67. Plus, she's pitching for Second Harvest

Food donations, AdCampaign, television commercials.

And she comes out with this fucking shit?

I'm going to have to donate my tongue to her because I don't need it anymore. I'm constantly speechless.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

25. calling kevorkican Pickles needs meds adjustment...pump up the valium!

[graywarrior]

27. I always clean up and decorate when

I'm involved with an alcoholic/addict, I'm co-dependent, I'm consumed with a past guilt of killing my friend in a drunk driving accident, when I live in total fear of the choices I made in my miserable, unmanageable life.
Laura needs cult de-programming...NOW!

[Snellius]

28. Remove the shrubs and Bushes

That's the only way to improve security and beautify the scenery.

[Cha]

29. Touche!

[lumpy]

30. Pickles is being used to

enhance Dubya's chances of re-election. They are getting pretty desperate to bring her into the news. She hasn't been fawned over like Nancy Reagan was. She hasn't even come up with a cookie recipe like dear ole Babs.

[RapidCreek]

31. Good to see my tax dollars being well spent

Meanwhile AWOL is asking to put us 87 Billion Dollars deeper into dept. Nice to see our first couple has their priorities straight! It's a "war on unsightliness"!!! I wonder when AWOL will appoint an unsightliness Czar?

RC

[Muddleoftheroad]

55. This is big news in DC

Closing Pennsylvania Ave. was huge, beautifying it is part of the kind of thing that happens in the capital.

[RapidCreek]

65. And the Queen paved the streets with Gold, oops I mean Granite

Gotta wonder how the folks living in the slum 6 blocks away feel about this? Are their Asphalt roads unsightly too? Ask Pickles she'd probably tell you those people like that kind of stuff.

RC

[goforit]

32. OMG!! If it looks anything like Crawford, heaven help us!!!

Hmmm......After 2.5 years at the WH, she is finally gonna get off her butt to do something?????

[PaDUer]

37. They should start by

fumigating the damn place!

[brook]

33. Note to Laura:

Give it up, Babe. Between your taste in husbands and those Sure-fit (don't fit) slipcovers you call pantsuits -we'd just as soon you don't mess around with OUR House and it's environs. It's about time for you to be calling the movers anyway.

[The Zanti Regent]

36. Remember--Pickles killed to get where she is at

Karma's a bitch, darling; get used to it!

[frank frankly]

34. Pickles & President Stupid: We Need Money!

Great timing, Pickles! Smart day to tell us you're spending more money on you!

[lebkuchen]

35. Does Laura's plan extend to the fronts of overseas US embassies

and military bases, which are armed camps full of concrete bouldered mazes, walled sandbags hiding guards with machine guns, all-weather vehicle check overhangs and 3 ID card inspections?

And they hate us for our freedom?

[corarose]

38. She needs to start with her and the Bush Crime Family moving out!

That would beautify that street 100%!

[study_war_no_more]

41. I'm inviting Yoko Ono

:grouphug: :hug: :hippie:

[piece sine]

44. short memories...

At the insistence of the Secret Service, President Bill Clinton approved the closing of Pennsylvania Ave. the day after the heinous Oklahoma City bombing. All D.C. was enraged! Traffic is still a mess, years later, but we've gotten used to LOSS of one of the city's main arteries.

The battles in Congress and the DC City Council have been waged endless, with Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton leading the fight, to re-open the boulevard to traffic. Security concerns prevailed.

The project in question has been designed, and re-designed and fussed-over to make the former Pennsylvania Ave. footprint blend into adjacent Lafayette Park. Future Presidents, tourists, visitors and even protestors will experience less barricaded asphalt and more greenery and stonework, blending urban design with heightened security concerns put forth during the Clinton Administration.

DUers have leaped upon the mention of Laura Bush's name to heap every variant of animosity toward her because she agreed to showcase the U.S. Park Service's final plans. She had literally nothing to do with the formulation or implementation of the final design. Congressional funding was granted from the get-go.

SO go ahead, fire away! I don't particularly like the woman myself, but not one poster here has any idea about the subject except that it is something to do with Laura Bush. I get a sense there's little or no peripheral vision about the Pennsylvania Avenue issue, or how or why it started, or what closing Pennsylvania Ave. means both symbolically and practically.

When you visit YOUR capitol in future, and you're looking at the White House from a handsome new park that used to be one of the great boulevards of the world, all you'll remember is "that damn Laura Bush" had something to do with this. And history is richer than that.

[MaineDem]

45. The timing still sucks

I don't care what she - or anyone else - wants to beautify. The timing is wrong.

[demgrrrll]

46. Didn't Bush close down the White House to tour groups? Has that order

been rescinded or is it still impossible to tour? It is true that groups have tried to get the street reopened there was a NCPC? task force that could have recommended opening the street but apparently they felt it was too risky. I agree the timing is really lousy. They aren't on their usual game at all.

[PartyPooper]

53. The Fuehrer has rescinded this decree! Tour groups will re-commence

on or about September 16, 2003. (There was a thread in LBN about this a week or so ago.)

As an earlier DU'er posted above, maybe the FAB 5 can do a make-over on Pickles AND the White House personal living quarters. That would be interesting, eh? Wouldn't you love to know whether Junior wears briefs or boxers?

Hell, if they sold tickets-or Pay Per View, they just might net enough to pay for this $87 billion looming bill Junior just handed us.

:evilgrin:

[piece sine]

47. The timing?

In Washington, D.C.? Gee, they're still putting the finishing touches on the nearly $900 new convention center, just down 7th Street a few blocks from the site of $400 million Native American Museum being surfaced in layered canyon stone instead of ho-hum white marble. Dozens, literally dozens, of construction cranes dot the city's skyline as more condos, offices, hospitals, government buildings, hotels and even more new museums spring-up, often with public funding.

So after years of planning and debate, the decision to "fix" the street in front of the White House for $25 million, a fraction of the $300 million cost for the World War II monument-extravaganza(!!) which is being built just steps from the White House. If you're a taxpayer, you're paying all of it already!

So what are you "timing?" How fast or how heavily the Nation's Capitol spends money on itself?! It never stops, my friend; DC's "trend" to spend goes back to GEORGE Washington himself! I didn't enter this debate to DEFEND Laura Bush, but some of us can't help but recoil at reactionary bluster uninformed by perspective.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

51. I'm an architect and I love DC

but this is a total waste and especially shameful when we are supposedly "at war".
If pickle head or her husband had a clue about what ordinary Americans want and need, they'd think of a much more economical solution to "beautifying" Penn. Ave.

[piece sine]

59. the BEST economics in this case...

was to listen to Eleanor Holmes Norton and just re-open Pennsylvania Avenue as the grand boulevard it is. The best solution would have not cost ANY addition funds. So it's no longer a real street but as an empty, dead street it looks kinda lame. Bunkered in. So it was decided to make it all contiguous green space and a park.

Cost-savings wise, I suppose they could have laid 6x6 pavers from Home Depot instead of the inset granite slabs that people will walk on for generations. And it IS the sidewalk in front of the White House. It's a pretty important area for tourists. I don't begrudge the federal architects and experts from the Planning Commission their decision, about a year ago, to go with granite. Too bad they surrendered the boulvevard to paranoia and fear....but now you know how I really feel. And at the time it protected Clinton.

[Sick of Bullshit]

61. Um, in Washington's day, the "trend to spend" meant actually building

the city, which was commenced in 1792 and opened for business in 1800, the year after Washington's death and three years after he left office.

[are_we_united_yet]

49. "but not one poster here has any idea..... "

You should not be so sure of statements like this. They tend to be inaccurate.

Obviously you're very passionate about this topic and perhaps better versed than many. But few like to be chided and indirectly insulted as being completely ignorant on a subject.

[Chovexani]

60. Uh no offense amigo

But people are DYING in Iraq on behalf of Halliburton and you're worried about opening a goddamn street?!

Dude, it's called priorities, if this was coming from Hillary I'd be just as vitriolic (and probably more, cause Hillary unlike Pickles has some brain cells to rub together).

[piece sine]

64. Took some anyway, amigo

The subject of the street/park IS the LBN news article starting this thread. So excuse me if I stay on-topic and discuss the closing of the Pennsylvania Avenue permanently. My immediate priority was to stay on topic, on the thread.

And I'm not worried about the opening the goddam street...they closed permanently it years ago!

I am worried about DUers misunderstanding something being discussed in the news tonight. The commencement of construction of a permanent park in front of the White House is not most urgent problem facing the world tonight...but it's Topic A at the top of this thread and that's good enough for me. At least for now.

[RapidCreek]

68. Tell you what my friend

A barricaded road is what needs to be there....it is symbolic of the the conditions which exist in this country. It should not be prettied up to disguise it's purpose. Talk about revisionist history.

Sorry, my friend I have to disagree with you. If your dog had a habit of shitting on your living room floor would you buy a pretty rug to role the turds under or would you correct the fucking problem?

26 million could employ and equip a whole lot of cops and first responders in my state. Guess I should be pleased that my security is less important than a facade.

You want to beautify Pennsylvania Ave.? Remove the damn barricades and restore it to it's original purpose. Now that would be beautiful. A testiment to everything which made our country great.

RC

[Muddleoftheroad]

70. No, that would be stupid

The road needs to stay closed for White House security. Since D.C. thrives on tourism, making that area look nice is essential.

[RapidCreek]

71. Gee then maybe they should start with beautifying

the slum six blocks away. That's been pretty unsightly for the last 60 years.

RC

[ldf]

50. of course, with the way the republicans manage money...

26 million would get you a couple of potted plants and a bench.

contracted out to halliburton, of course, with no competing bids.

[leesa]

56. And exactly who approved this completely unnecessary project?

We are dying as a country and supposedly at war and she is replacing the unsightly asphalt...people are dying for her husband's lies and she's busy prettyifying to the tune of $26 million desparately needed dollars??

[TeeYiYi]

63. Maybe her husband could just add $26 mil to the $87 bil . . .

. . . that ought to take care of it. No problemo. Money grows on trees in DC. (Or it's printed in Greenspan's basement, whichever.)
How do you write that . . . $87,026,000,000. Yeah, I think that's it. See how easy that was? Pickles can have her pavement. . .

TYY :argh:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

57. How many potholes

would 26 million fill?

[classics]

62. Let them eat cake.

$26 large for pink roads while a few miles away people are dying of curable illness, living in the streets and going without food.

[sandnsea]

66. And don't forget to donate to Second Harvest!

Okay, she's officially whatever filthy name comes to your mind when you read this. Spending millions of dollars when you have a television ad running for food donations???

These people are just fucked up in the head.

[jab105]

69. Lovely pickles.....

thanky-poo!!

[calimary]

72. Here's how you do it, Laura:

You and Georgie-poo move home to Crawford - NOW. PERMANENTLY!!! And take all your scum knuckle-dragger Rethug asshole rat-bastard schmuck friends with you!

Washington will be a MUCH lovelier city without you.

[hyphenate]

74. Funny;

Howcum she doesn't have to "sacrifice" like the rest of us?

[veganwitch]

75. she will be turning the homeless

into mailboxes ala the simpsons.