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Bushy Cards

Published November 07, 2022 Updated November 07, 2022

“The Bushy Cards” playing card deck published by Political Parody LLC, USA, 2005.

2005 USA Political Parody Humour Political

Published by Political Parody, LLC in 2005, this pack is a hilarious parody criticizing the presidency of George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. It contains 55 cards, including 2 jokers and an extra card which repeats the Thomas Jefferson’s maxim that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism”. The face of G.W. is superimposed into a variety of different photographs of men, women, children and even animals. See the box

“The Bushy Cards” published by Political Parody LLC, USA, 2005 “The Bushy Cards” published by Political Parody LLC, USA, 2005

Above: “The Bushy Cards” published by Political Parody LLC, USA, 2005.

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By Peter Burnett

Member since July 27, 2022

I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.

Russian Playing Cards

Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.

Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.

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