July 2, 2009: Hall of Presidents with George W. Bush

[Werner Weiss]

The Hall of Presidents, in the Yester Kingdom at Yester World, welcomes George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States.

Link to The Hall of Presidents Welcomes a New President: George W. Bush.

Please discuss it here.

[xalesa]

A nice update to "YesterWorld".

[StormTheCastle]

Does the AA Obama use a teleprompter?

[Beaumandy]

Very fair update. I was SURE this would be a bash Bush story, but the writer kept it fair and balanced.

[epaddon]

As the author of the "Hall Of Presidents" page at Mike Lee's "Widen Your World" site, there was for me, nothing more inexcusable in the annals of lost WDW attractions than the loss of the original program in 1993 and Royal Dano's vocal performance as Lincoln.

The political elements of the revised script are a subject I prefer not to get into, but Eric Foner's objections to the original Lincoln speech (a close parallel, but not identical version to the DL "Great Moments" speech, especially in Royal Dano's delivery which was more quiet), which was compiled by James Algar from actual Lincoln speeches, as "fascistic" rank as the most inane critical remarks ever made about a Disney attraction over the course of 50 plus years, IMO.

I would much prefer that a new HOP attraction dispense altogether with the speech by the current President, regardless of who he is, update the original script while keeping its spirit of positivism intact, and restore the original Dano Lincoln speech in full.

[DrMemory]

While I can sort of understand why some people would want to do away with the speeches-by-contemporary-therefore-potentially-contentious-presidents practise, I'd like to see them keep it up, if only for one reason:
After only a couple of presidents doing it, it's become almost accepted by the White House as being a routine presidential "duty": you know, get sworn in, name your cabinet, record speech for animatronic version of self in Hall of Presidents.
It's pretty much got to the point where Disney can just call the president's staff and say, "so when can the president record his HOP speech, as is... um (cough)... 'tradition'?" and receive a reply more like "oh, right, of course!" rather than "why should we bother? It's not exactly in the constitution, you know..."
That aspect of it appeals to me, so I'd say it would be silly to give it up.