George W. Bush: “Miss Me Yet?”

Along a highway in Minnesota, American drivers can see these words and an image of Bush plastered on a billboard. Who’s hiding behind this image?

Drivers on the north part of I-35 in Minneapolis haven’t been suffering from political-publicity hallucinations for the last couple of weeks. At a certain spot in Wyoming, you can see George W. Bush, former president of the United States, with a malicious eye, waving his hand and asking, “Miss me yet?”

Two questions about this poster have surfaced on the Internet. First, is this for real? Bob Collins, journalist from Minnesota Public Radio, has emphatically said on his blog that the photo has not been retouched. Second is the key question: Who is responsible for the poster?

Was it the Republicans, a group of Tea Party conservatives or maybe some bloggers? A nearly identical image circulated the Internet a couple a months ago and American Internet users received it in their email inboxes last September. This image can also be found on a series of items for sale online.

The hypotheses are abundant. We know for sure it’s not the Republican mayor of Wyoming, Sheldon Anderson. “Wish I could take credit for it. Calls everyday asking if it was me. If you find out let me know,” Sheldon Anderson responded to Bob Collins. Fox News questioned Anderson, who was elected head of his electoral party for the midterm elections in November, informing them that the cost of this poster campaign was estimated between $3,000 and $3,500.

So who spent the money? According to the management at Schubert and Hoey Outdoor Advertising, the financial contributors for this billboard consist of a small group of entrepreneurs who felt Washington was working against them. According to Bob Collins’s blog, these entrepreneurs, who wish to remain anonymous, “thought it was a fun way of getting out their message.”

It’s fun in its own right but also because the Bush “Miss Me Yet” billboard rewrites the code of motivational posters. These posters, composed of a photo and a short message on a black background, serve to motivate or inspire those who see it in offices and schools. This practice is becoming widespread and parodied as “de-motivational posters” in the United States.

As for a response to the question on this billboard, the opinions on the Bush era are mixed. For some, like Oliver Willis, contributor to the Huffington Post, it’s a clear, repeated and definitive “No, no, no.” Some parodies, in which the message is replaced, followed. One reads, “Do you remember me? It’s me who put you in the pickle you’re in now.” A barrage of alternative phrases has also been debated on Facebook.

On the other hand, some believe that this campaign fell at the right moment to indirectly criticize Barack Obama and his political views, as shown on some blogs on The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s website.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush added the finishing touches to his memoir entitled Decision Points, to be released in 2010. This was a year pompously filled with works of this genre, including works from his wife Laura and his right-hand man, Karl Rove. Americans can soon peruse these works of the Bush era, whether they miss him or not.