<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/25/america/bush.php">http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/25/america/bush.php</a><br>
<br>
<!-- /kicker & headline --><!-- subhead --><!-- /subhead --><!-- byline -->
<div class="byline">
<div class="dots"><img src="cid:part1.01000001.01010303@mailbag.com"
alt="" height="1" width="3"></div>
<div id="author" style="float: left;"><strong><a
href="http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?query=By%20Jesse%20McKinley&sort=publicationdate&submit=Search">By
Jesse McKinley</a></strong> </div>
<div id="pubDate" style="float: right;">Published: June 25, 2008</div>
<div class="dots"><img src="cid:part1.01000001.01010303@mailbag.com"
alt="" height="1" width="3"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<p><strong><a id="articleLocation" title="Click to view map"
href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/25/america/bush.php#">SAN
FRANCISCO</a>:</strong>
Reagan has his highways. Lincoln has his memorial. Washington has the
capital, and a state, too. But President George W. Bush may soon be the
sole president to have a memorial named after him that you can
contribute to from the bathroom.</p>
<p>From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by
the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San
Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a
prize-winning water-treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W.
Bush Sewage Plant.</p>
<p>The plan - hatched, naturally, in a bar - would place a vote on the
November ballot to provide "an appropriate honor for a truly
unique president."</p>
<p>Supporters say that they have plenty of signatures to qualify the
initiative and that the renaming would fit in a long and proud American
tradition of poking political figures in the eye.</p>
<p>"Most politicians tend to be narcissistic and egomaniacs," said
Brian McConnell, an organizer who regularly suits up as Uncle Sam to
solicit signatures. "So it is important for satirists to help define
their history rather than letting them define their own history."</p>
<!-- sidebar -->
<div class="ISI_IGNORE" id="sidebar"><!-- today in links -->
<div class="sidebar_content_box">
<h3>Today in Americas</h3>
<div class="dots"><img src="cid:part3.05010803.02040800@mailbag.com"
alt="" height="1" width="3"></div>
<div class="sidebar_item" style="margin: 4px 0px; overflow: hidden;">
<div class="sidebar_item_link"><a
href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/26/america/26unity.php">Many
hurdles for 2 democrats on path to unity</a></div>
</div>
<div class="dots"><img src="cid:part3.05010803.02040800@mailbag.com"
alt="" height="1" width="3"></div>
<div class="sidebar_item" style="margin: 4px 0px; overflow: hidden;">
<div class="sidebar_item_link"><a
href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/26/asia/nuclear.php">North
Korea and U.S. break nuclear impasse</a></div>
</div>
<div class="dots"><img src="cid:part3.05010803.02040800@mailbag.com"
alt="" height="1" width="3"></div>
<div class="sidebar_item" style="margin: 4px 0px; overflow: hidden;">
<div class="sidebar_item_link"><a
href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/26/america/26airports.php">Laptop
searches at U.S. airports draw fire at Senate hearing</a></div>
</div>
<div class="dots"><img src="cid:part3.05010803.02040800@mailbag.com"
alt="" height="1" width="3"></div>
</div>
<!-- /today in links --><!-- 170 x 60 ad -->
<div align="center">
<script type="text/javascript">
ord = Math.random() * 10000000000000000;
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ad.fr.doubleclick.net/adj/americas.iht.com/article;cat=article;sz=190x90;ord=' + ord + '?"><' + '/' + 'script>');
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://ad.fr.doubleclick.net/adj/americas.iht.com/article;cat=article;sz=190x90;ord=2076292098247726.2?"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
if ((!document.images && navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Mozilla/2.') >= 0)|| navigator.userAgent.indexOf("WebTV") >= 0){
document.write('<a href="http://ad.fr.doubleclick.net/jump/americas.iht.com/article;cat=article;sz=190x90;ord=123456789?" target="_blank"><img src="http://ad.fr.doubleclick.net/ad/americas.iht.com/article;cat=article;sz=190x90;ord=123456789?" width="170" height="60" border="0" alt="" /></a>');
} </script><noscript><br>
</noscript> </div>
<!-- /170 x 60 ad --></div>
<!-- /sidebar -->
<p>Not surprisingly, those Republicans in a city that voted 83 percent
Democratic in 2004 are not thrilled with the idea. Howard Epstein,
chairman of the ever-outnumbered San Francisco Republican Party, called
the initiative "an abuse of process."</p>
<p>"You got a bunch of guys drunk who came up with an idea," Epstein
said, "and want to put on the ballot as a big joke without regard to
the city's governance or cost."</p>
<p>The renaming would take effect on Jan. 20, when a new president is
sworn in. And regardless of the measure's outcome, supporters plan to
commemorate the inaugural with a "synchronized flush" of hundreds of
thousands of toilets that would send a flood of water toward the plant,
now named the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant.</p>
<p>"It's a way of doing something physical that's mentally freeing,"
said Stacey Reineccius, 45, a supporter of the plan. "It's a weird
thing, but it's true."</p>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</body>
</html>