College Station, November 6

Bright blue Texas skies, American flags popping in the breeze, fresh-faced college kids belting out popular songs from the previous century, strutting cadets with spit-shined boots. They're pulling out all the stops for the dedication of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum Center on the campus of Texas A&M in College Station, and the results are impressive, if not downright scary. It's what you might get if the 700 Club started opening Planet Hollywood franchises.

We've got everything you need for a serious public ceremony these days: satellite dishes, metal detectors, cases of bottled water, live internet feeds, commemorative T-shirts, sharpshooters on the rooftops. There's a complicated system of security passes that no one seems to understand in its entirety: twelve different colors, each color denoting a precise set of rights and privileges regarding parking places, seating arrangements, and access to the different classes of porta-potties. A temporary chain-link fence serves to keep the merely curious at a distance. In the state-of-the-art media center, reporters can fax in pages from the press guide while snacking on cold cuts supplied by a corporate sponsor.

From the dedication site itself you can see a steady stream of private jets, landing at a nearby airport to deposit their loads of wealthy contributors. An improvised jitney service of limos and full-sized Suburbans whisk them away to special V.I.P metal detectors. There, humorless Secret Service men go about the grim task of frisking the rich.

Even among the most jaded media types there is visible evidence of spines being tingled. This is, after all, the mother of all photo ops: four presidents, six first ladies, governors, generals, senators, corporate CEOs, university professors, television evangelists, go-to guys, and political fixers. Plenty of professional celebrities as well: Ed McMahon, Wayne Newton, Willard Scott, Chuck Norris, at least two of the Oak Ridge Boys. Kevin Costner shows up wearing a dark suit and an expensive-looking T-shirt, quickly attracting a swarm of news cameras and giggly reporters. Arnold Schwarzenegger makes a late entrance, walking with a pronounced limp as he makes his way down front. "Oh, he looks so much taller in the movies," one female reporter observes, not quite under her breath.

The crowd of foreign dignitaries who turn up for the event seems a little picked over. Mostly what we've got here is an impressive collection of formers: former Prime Minister John Major from the U.K., former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada, former Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu of Japan, former President Lech Walesa of Poland. Almost all now have popularity ratings in their home countries that can be measured in single digits. Former Mexican President Carlos Salinas would like to have dropped by, had it not been for the inconvenience posed by our extradition treaty with Mexico. Of Bush's contemporaries among world leaders, it seems only Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein have managed to hang on.

As the various groups of guests continue to take their seats, it's hard not to notice how white this crowd is. Not just mostly white. Really white. Take away Colin Powell and the A&M grounds crew, and you basically have the whitest group of people that you're likely to run across outside of a gun show.

Of course, whiteness was just about the only glue that held together the Bush's political universe of country clubbers, middle-class suburbanites, and Christian fundamentalists. So maybe it's just a matter of getting comfortable with large numbers of Republicans gathered in one place, but just about the time you've reconciled yourself to this demographic anomaly-the Singing Cadets, dressed in white dinner jackets and Aggie Maroon bow ties, launch into a spirited rendition of "Dixie."

Mindful of the deadlines imposed by the evening news shows, the ceremony kicks off crisply at 9:45 a.m. with a program of what loosely might be described as patriotic music. This part of the festivities is hosted by Texas A&M graduate and former professional football star Ray Childress. Other than his work on the gridiron, Childress' media experience has pretty much been limited to television commercials for suburban car dealers, and he gamely struggles with the pronunciation of foreign names like an offensive lineman sent out by his coach on a pass pattern.

At 11:00 sharp, Billy Graham clears it with God, and the main ceremony gets underway. A pledge of allegiance, more flag waving, plenty of podium time for Bush sons and politicians Jeb and George W. Everyone hits his mark, keeps it short, and stays on-message. Ford and Carter tell some jokes. Clinton tries one himself. There's a lot of presidential waving, with the end of each wave prolonged just enough to accommodate the photographers. One big crowd-pleaser is the moment when the four presidents move in formation to the edge of the stage. They smile and wave in time, like members of a championship synchronized swimming team no longer under water.

During all this literal pomp and circumstance, one question that never quite gets answered is why they've built the thing here in the first place. Once the site of an experimental pig farm (George W. refers to it in his speech as "this hallowed ground"), the library appears to be located at least one hundred miles from the last known residence of any Bush family member. A local paper does some research and declares Bush's roots in the area go back at least to 1984, when he delivered a commencement address as vice-president. The paper goes on to quote Bush as saying that College Station "felt like home."

Apparently it never seemed so much like home that he wanted to try living here. But then Bush has always used his Texas background like a cheap pair of cowboy boots-on display when out-of-town guests arrive, but kicked off as soon as everyone goes home. Even today he seems ill-fitted for the role of the returning hero, the local boy who made good. Instead, he handles his speech-making duties like the president of a suburban PTA, where most of the parents have just moved to the neighborhood.

The speech ends, the crowd cheers, the flags wave, the sun shines. Army paratroopers drop from the skies and the band plays "God Bless the U.S.A." Behind the podium, the library glistens like a brand new Ramada Inn.

Once the ceremony concludes, the well-connected are herded into a vast white tent. After passing through a gauntlet of Junior Leaguers handing out gift boxes from Tiffany's, they sit down to a $1,000-a-plate lunch and undisclosed entertainment. Most of the rest of the crowd dutifully lines up for a tour of the museum. If you have a media pass, you can march right up to the front of the line; there's only a minor bit of unpleasantness from those still waiting to enter.

Inside the museum, the space opens up into a Capitol-sized rotunda dominated by three great slabs of marble engraved with the names of the museum's biggest financial donors. Most visitors pause for a moment of respect, if not reflection. Each level of donation earns you a different title. For a million-dollar tax-deductible donation you can be added to the President's Cabinet. In today's market, that seems a little pricey. Moreover, you'll have to share the honor with entities like Coca-Cola, the Washington Times, and the governments of Japan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. (Here's a trick question you might want to try at a party sometime: Name the American president who restored democracy to Kuwait.) For a mere $50,000, you can be a Friend.

The museum itself consists largely of memorabilia, pseudo-memorabilia, replicas, and miniatures. Knickknacks from a privileged up-bringing. Gear from World War II. Bush's baseball mitt from Yale. A refurbished 1947 Studebaker displayed in conjunction with Bush's fabled entrada into West Texas upon his graduation from college, a journey that might be compared with the Joads migrating to California to pick peaches-were it not for the fact that Bush went to work for a company controlled by his daddy's investment firm.

Photos of Bush at home. Photos of Bush at work. Photos of Bush jogging in Houston's Memorial Park, hunting in Beeville, riding a girl's bicycle in Kennebunkport. Bush the preppie. Bush the warrior. Bush the family man, the business man, the successful candidate, the successful ambassador, the successful bureaucrat. Bush is everywhere, but the museum also seems haunted by a Bush doppelgänger, unsubstantial: a bloodless presence that always escapes closer inspection. The only time one sees Bush break into a political sweat is when he has to explain to his affluent constituents on Houston's west side why his vote for the Fair Housing Act won't hurt their property values. For the most part, it's hard to figure out exactly what George Bush has stood for over the years. Other than getting ahead, that is.

Which he did. And here's the proof of his labors: A replica of his office at Camp David, down to the coffee cups and pencils in the desk drawers. A replica of his office in Air Force One-the ultimate ticket upgrade. A replica of the north White House portico, where the four Presidents had their photo made earlier in the day-big men in a scaled-down world.

There are no surprises. The museum's highlight is the Gulf War exhibit, a fast-paced, interactive introduction to the use of mass destruction in the service of political expediency. Peaceful Kuwait. Bad boy Iraq. American technology. Your tax dollars at work. Huge photographic murals of burning oil wells shock the mostly Texan crowd-imagine a group of animal-rights activists watching a video of baby seals being clubbed.

The war itself is represented as a huge multi-media video game-and it's hands-on. Ten-year-old boys push a button to launch a tank attack across the Iraqi desert, roll up the southern flank, or return the residents of Baghdad to the stone age. Looking into simulated night-vision goggles, you can watch an Iraqi tank explode.

That's it. No visit to the mountaintop for this president.

From the Gulf War exhibit, it's a short walk down a ramp past a photo of Bush and Gorbachev launching the New World Order. There's a brief, bitter discussion of the 1992 elections. There's more tokens of gratitude from the Kuwaitis. There's Barbara's charity projects. There's gifts from Bush admirers. Then there's the museum shop.

By the time the crowds start re-emerging from the museum, the festivities in the big tent are over, the parking lots start to thin out, news crews grab a few last shots and wrap up their broadcasts. A group of boisterous college students takes over the speakers' platform, taking photos of each other sitting in the very places where the seats of government rested less than an hour ago. The groundskeepers reappear, and start cleaning up.

Across the field you can watch the corporate jets launch, one after the other from the little airport: missiles targeting the next unsuspecting population.