Backup power: the phenomenon of replica Oval Offices
Just days after the most recent US election, before former President Bush could unpack his bags in Crawford, the first site plans were released for the new Bush Presidential Library. It will be constructed next to Southern Methodist University here in Dallas, and will apparently necessitate the bulldozing of my local bank branch. Perhaps this is a fitting postscript to Bush's presidency.
It's likely that the Bush Library will include a replica of the Oval Office as it appeared during his tenure in the White House. Most presidential libraries include Oval Offices, each a meticulous reconstruction of the Washington original as it appeared during a particular presidency, from the drapes to the doilies.
This begs the question: how many imitation Oval Offices exist? A quick search online reveals Oval Office replicas at the presidential libraries of Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan, Ford, Kennedy, Johnson, Truman, and FDR. Not to be outdone, Texas resident Ron Wade personally built an Oval Office next to his home. A fake Oval Office was temporarily constructed in at the Minneapolis Convention Centre in 2008 as a photo-op for tourists. As part of a marketing campaign in Washington, D.C. at the time of Obama's inauguration, IKEA slapped up a partial replica -- more a mockup -- of the Oval Office in Union Station, featuring, of course, IKEA bookshelves and other Scandinavian doodads in place of antique furniture.
Discounting the numerous reconstructions of the famous room for use as movie sets (including the elaborate, quasi-accurate set for TV's The West Wing), it's safe to say there are likely more than a dozen Oval Offices across the country and around the world. Like a company that keeps backups of crucial data at various sites in case of natural disaster, perhaps these shrines to democracy are part of a harebrained continuity-of-government scheme. America's fascination with the Oval Office has resulted in a redundancy that seems poignant given the nearly-averted airborne attack on the White House on 9/11. Would these backup Oval Offices serve as blueprints in the event of the original's destruction? Given that many of these replicas are decorated to accurately reflect the office's appearance during the term of a particular president, these imitation Oval Offices are perhaps more 'authentic' than the constantly-evolving version in Washington. With each departing president, the office generates a documentary artefact of its current state in the form of a duplicate. As long as presidents come and go, the Oval Office will continue to be a self-replicating system.
With this in mind, I shouldn't be too upset that the new Bush Library will displace my bank. Like the Oval Office, my bank has branches everywhere.