National Park Services To Add President Obama To Mount Rushmore

One way to capitalize on your stellar win for re-election is to be added amongst our nation's founders on Mount Rushmore. Is it true? We have the details after the jump.

CORRECTION: According to the U.S. National Parks, there's simply no room for any more additions to Mount Rushmore. [Source: HuffPo]

Is President Barack Obama being added to the legendary Mt. Rushmore monument in Keystone, South Dakota? It appears that the National Park Service formally announced its intent to proceed with the modification, which is scheduled to begin in late 2015. The official announcement was made yesterday at NPS' Washington D.C. offices, and carries a target completion date of September 2018.

The project aims to involve several hundred miners and engineers (Obama putting people back to work!) and will utilize state of the art machinery and green solvents to re-create Obama's bust in the area adjacent to the George Washington visage. Optimistically, the three-year completion time is a bit of a rush, seeing that it took a total of fourteen years to construct the original monument. Unlike the throwback era construction, which relied on workers affixed to the top of the monument via rope harnesses, hydraulic lifts are expected to be placed with telescoping platforms, employing the same engineering technology currently in use to reconstruct the World Trade Center.

Sculptor Irving Gneus, who is overseeing the project for the Park Service, hinted at what Americans should expect as the final result, saying, "The intent was to have Obama facing the same direction as Lincoln, given the milestones in race relations that their Presidencies represent."

Detractors are already coming out of the woodwork to through their not-so-veiled disses toward the POTUS. Back in 2011, on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, he said, "If this becomes a reality I will personally strap a load of C5 to my stomach and lower myself down onto the Obama sculpture's nose."

Thankfully, the taxpayers in South Dakota won't be footing the bill, as the cost to modify the original monument is expected to be largely offset by corporate donors.

Props: Daily Kos