George W. Bush Presidential Library

Last week Saturday, I visited the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas. It's my third presidential library. I've already hit the LBJ and Clinton libraries in Austin and Little Rock, respectively.

The George W. Bush library charts the course of the second Bush presidency from the contested Florida recount to the horror 9/11 to the controversial decision to invade Iraq to the 2008 financial crisis. Exhibits also tout the 43rd president's education reforms and increase in AIDS relief to Africa.

Some of the library's more impressive features include the the looping video projected on the atrium inside Freedom Hall, Decision Points Theater in which visitors get two points of view from experts before deciding on a tough policy issue, and an interactive replica of President Bush's Oval Office.

The most moving part of the library is a bent steel beam from the World Trade Center. According to a docent, it is believed to be from near the point of impact on one of the towers. Visitors are encouraged to touch the jagged warped metal, which brought some to tears.