Originally Posted By ecdc <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/17/AR2007011702378.html" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/17/AR2007011702378.html</a> It's not often that I get a chance to defend the President, so I'll give it a shot. MSNBC and others have reported that some at Southern Methodist University, where Bush has said he is leaning towards having his Presidential Library, are opposed to having the library there because of the President's policies. Presidential Libraries are essential to our national history. They aren't just nice places for people to visit a hagiographical museum about the President or for them to lay in state after their deaths. They house important documents and have archivists and curators who are constantly collecting and gathering documents about the President's life and years of service. Without Presidential libraries and the work of those who maintain and enlarge the collections, we wouldn't have Robert Caro's magnificent biographical series of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Dallek's excellent book on John F. Kennedy, or much more. It's not at all appropriate for SMU to say one President isn't good enough for them. Few people loathe George W. Bush and his abysmal Presidency as much as I do. But the man has the right to designate a place for his library and they should welcome it with open-arms. If there are things they find distasteful about the Bush Presidency, it will be housed in the library; documents will be restricted at first (as is common for all archives) but they'll all come out eventually. Some things shouldn't be politicized.
Originally Posted By melekalikimaka I think they have the right to not want it there. It might be a decision they regret later but it's their choice to make. I'm sure there are plenty of other places that would LOOOVE to have his library.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>I think they have the right to not want it there. It might be a decision they regret later but it's their choice to make. I'm sure there are plenty of other places that would LOOOVE to have his library.<< Do they have a right? Sure. Does it make them look foolish? Absolutely. As an educational institution that's supposed to be a place of learning, debate, and a multitude of ideas to say we're turning away a library because we don't like the politics of the person its named after is absurd. It only serves to perpetuate the belief that colleges and universities are closed-minded, intolerant bastions of liberal thought.
Originally Posted By DlandDug According to the article, the school has been working on getting this library for the last six years. When it came to light that a conservative think tank may be a component, 68 members of the 600+ faculty members signed a letter of concern addressed to the school's president. This does not sound like the library is drawing protests. I agree that these institutions should be free of politics. But that really isn't the case. Look at what recently went oin with Carter's staff defecting in droves. The Nixon Library, down here in SoCal has never gotten away from some controversies. And the Clinton Library may well be tangled up in Hillary's run for office. (Just my opinion, I think the idea of attaching a think tank to a Presidential Library is arrogant. It makes it seem that the subject of the library is anxious to burnish his reputation.)
Originally Posted By mrichmondj The problem with Presidential libraries is that they are funded with private funds raised by the President whose life they portray. The libraries are essentially a propaganda piece funded and operated by a team selected by the President whose life the library is supposed to represent. President Bush and the Bush family will have total editorial control over every document housed in the library and every exhibit assembled by the curators there. These repositories do not exist so that researchers can collect a full spectrum of information on the life of a president -- they exist so that only a narrow spectrum that the President wishes to have exposed can be accessed by the public. I think the folks at SMU are afraid they will be embarrassed down the road by a library that extolls the virtues of a Bush presidency at the expense of telling any part of the story related to lies about WMDs, pre-emptive strikes on 2-bit dictators, or the largest U.S. budget deficits in history.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 SMU, be embarassed ? One of the most vilified schools for cheating at college sports programs passing judgement on anyone....how ironic. They set new levels for NCAA sanctions and set the bar for the bottom rung.... for those of you too young to remember - their scandal was voted the 3rd worst ever in sports history - after only the 1919 Black Sox scandal in throwin the world series and the Olympic basketball loss to the Russians with lots of creative timekeeping and officiating.....they should know embarassment when they see it> <a href="http://espn.go.com/page2/s/readers/worstscandals.html" target="_blank">http://espn.go.com/page2/s/rea ders/worstscandals.html</a>
Originally Posted By mrichmondj I recommend that they locate the Bush Presidential Library on a large floating oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. That would be a very good facility to represent what the administration has stood for during the past 6 years.
Originally Posted By friendofdd As I understand it, the complaint is coming from some faculty members, but the governing board is eager to have it there.
Originally Posted By No Waiting in Line The ever "tolerant" left once again showing their true colors. Stalin would be proud.
Originally Posted By No Waiting in Line --The problem with Presidential libraries is that they are funded with private funds raised by the President whose life they portray. -- True. Bill Clinton had millions donated to his Massage parlor, I mean library, by the Saudis. --I think the folks at SMU are afraid they will be embarrassed down the road by a library that extolls the virtues of a Bush presidency at the expense of telling any part of the story related to lies about WMDs, pre-emptive strikes on 2-bit dictators, or the largest U.S. budget deficits in history.-- The only folks that would think that are the far left crackpots who actually believe your last statement has some or any truth to it.
Originally Posted By cmpaley >>hey house important documents and have archivists and curators who are constantly collecting and gathering documents about the President's life and years of service.<< Yeah, but "The Pet Goat" and "Dick and Jane" hardly need a whole "lie-berry" (as Bush would say) to contain them. Heck, all we need to know about Bush is contained in a few verses of the Bible in the Apocolypse, 13:1-4. Considering the way some Republicans talk about him, verse 4 seems to be particulary relevant. ;-)
Originally Posted By cmpaley >>I recommend that they locate the Bush Presidential Library on a large floating oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. That would be a very good facility to represent what the administration has stood for during the past 6 years.<< ROFLMAO!!! That is PERFECT!
Originally Posted By vbdad55 So that would mean Clinton's would go into a house of ill repute somewhere ? the first presidentail library with a red light outside
Originally Posted By mrichmondj ^^ I'm not sure it would be the first that deserved that distinction. There were many others with that reputation long before Clinton.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 yep - JFK to name one. And Nixon's library could have been in the Watergate hotel ( had they not torn it down-I believe) -
Originally Posted By mrichmondj Watergate is still there. It's still a fairly prominent address in DC.
Originally Posted By DlandJB The ever "tolerant" left once again showing their true colors. Stalin would be proud.>>> As opposed to a cowardly sock puppet who will never show his/her true colors. What are you afraid of?
Originally Posted By DlandDug >>Heck, all we need to know about Bush is contained in a few verses of the Bible in the Apocolypse, 13:1-4.<< The Bible in my "lie-berry" doesn't have a book of "Apocolypse." Or is that just another creative "paraphrase" of the Gospel?
Originally Posted By No Waiting in Line What is a sock puppet? Someone who has an opposing view on here I guess. I will point out that these protests only occur when a Republican president wants to set up his Library. Ronald Reagan was banned from having his library at Stanford by the open minded, tolerant left. The left has a very hard time with the opposing view being heard whatsoever. That is where the cowardly angle really comes in DLandJB. You prove this out nicely.
Originally Posted By melekalikimaka 1. sock puppet An account made on an internet message board, by a person who already has an account, for the purpose of posting more-or-less anonymously.Top of Form 2. sock puppet 1: A fake personality, usually a 'friend' or 'sister,' created by a drama queen/king for the sake of defending him/herself against others in an online forum. 2: Someone who might be an actual person but behaves like the above, defending someone who really deserves no defense. Example: After mskyootie44 left the board in a snit, she made a sock puppet claiming to be her sister that told us we should all be ashamed of how mean we were because mskyootie was cutting herself in the bathroom. 3. sock puppet: Used to describe a person who has no original thoughts, opinions, or ideas of his/her own. Instead they regurgitate the "party-line" or talking points of others; usually of their particular political party.
