The Obama
Presidential Library That Isn’t
President Obama unveiled the plans for the Obama Presidential Center in May 2017. He said he wanted a place that “looked forward, not backward, and would provide a place to train future leaders.”
The Obama Presidential Center promises to be
a presidential library like no other.
The four-building, 19-acre “working center
for citizenship,” set to be built in a public park on the South Side of
Chicago, will include a 235-foot-high “museum tower,” a two-story event space,
an athletic center, a recording studio, a winter garden, even a sledding hill.
But the center, which will cost an
estimated $500 million, will also differ from the complexes built by Barack
Obama’s predecessors in another way: It won’t actually be a presidential
library.
In a break with precedent, there will be no
research library on site, and none of Mr. Obama’s official presidential
records. Instead, the Obama Foundation will pay to digitize the roughly 30
million pages of unclassified paper records from the administration so they can
be made available online.
And the entire
complex, including the museum chronicling Mr. Obama’s presidency, will be run
by the foundation, a private nonprofit entity, rather than by the National
Archives and Records Administration, the federal agency that administers the
libraries and museums for all presidents going back to Herbert Hoover.
But as awareness of the plan has spread,
some historians see a threat to future scholarship on the Obama administration
— and to the presidential library system itself.
Without a dedicated
repository, they argue, the rich constellations of related material found at
the other libraries — papers donated by family members, cabinet members and
aides, as well as pre-presidential and personal papers — could end up
scattered, or even uncollected. And without help from specialized archivists,
the promised digital democratization could just as easily turn into a
hard-to-navigate data dump.
Unlike the complexes of previous
presidents, the Obama Center will be privately run and will not include a
federal research library onsite. Instead, his unclassified official records
will be digitized and made available online.
More broadly, there’s concern that the
creation of a privately run presidential museum undermines the ideal of
nonpartisan public history.
Timothy Naftali, the
former director of the Richard Nixon library, where he is credited with overhauling
museum exhibits to give a more honest accounting of Watergate,
called the decision “a huge mistake.”
“It opens the door,” he added, “to a truly
terrible Trump library.”
‘An Act of Faith’
The current system had its origins in 1939,
when Franklin D. Roosevelt donated his papers to the federal government and
began building a library to hold them near his home in Hyde Park, N.Y. (Before
the Presidential Records Act of 1978, a president’s papers were considered his
private property.)
“It seems to me that the dedication of a
library is in itself an act of faith,” Roosevelt said at the opening in 1941, standing on the porch of
the modest Dutch colonial-style structure, which also housed a small display of
artifacts.
The library, paid for with private funds, was
donated to the National Archives. Since then, the federal system has grown to
include all 13 presidents going back to Hoover, whose library was created
retroactively.
Today, the museums
may draw the crowds, but it’s in the research libraries where historians piece
together a more accurate view of a presidency. White House records and other
collections at the libraries have, for example, overturned
the idea of Dwight D. Eisenhower as a genial, golf-playing
figurehead, and revealed the depth of internal debate in Lyndon B. Johnson’s
White House over the escalation of the Vietnam War.
Anthony Clark, the author of “The Last Campaign,” a
recent book about presidential libraries, called the Obama Foundation’s break
with the existing model “an unambiguous good for the American taxpayer.”
The National Archives “will not be saddled,
as it is at the federal presidential libraries of Mr. Obama’s 13 immediate
predecessors, with the expense and embarrassment of hosting troublingly
politicized exhibits, speakers, events and educational programs,” he said.
Just how the Obama Foundation’s decision to
opt out of the current system took shape remains unclear. In Jonathan Alter’s
2010 book “The Promise,” the
newly elected President Obama was quoted musing that maybe his future
presidential library should be “an online library.”
The idea was certainly in tune with the
increasingly digital nature of the presidential paper trail. In addition to
millions of pages of paper, the Obama presidential records include some 300
million emails, as well as Snapchat posts, tweets and other born-digital
records.
It is also in line
with trends at the National Archives, which faces stagnant budgets and an
exploding number of records to care for. The agency’s current
strategic plan calls for digitizing all its holdings, which it
estimates at amounting to some 12.5 billion pages.
In May 2017, when
President Obama appeared in Chicago to
unveil the design for the center, renderings included a 50,000-square-foot
“Library Building.” But the research facility and archives most people had
assumed would be inside it had disappeared.
The decision to break with the National
Archives model “was not disclosed” at the unveiling, according to The
Chicago Tribune. It was not noted in the foundation’s main
news release describing the center, but was instead outlined in
a separate,
terse release.
Some observers are dismayed at what they
see as the lack of transparency, and the slow trickle of information from both
the foundation and the National Archives.
“They are creating a fog and confusing the
public and the broader historical community about what this thing actually is,”
Bob Clark, a former director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
and Museum, said in an interview.
“Everybody is still
calling it a presidential library, but it’s not,” said Mr. Clark, who published
a highly critical article about
the Obama decision in the journal The Public Historian. “It’s a museum and a
headquarters for a foundation that is funding the National Archives’ goal of
digitizing all its documents.”
The
Digital Future, or ‘Bait and Switch’?
The decision to forgo an on-site
partnership with the National Archives could be a problem for the center, which
has yet to break ground. A lawsuit currently
in federal court is challenging the legality of building it in a public park,
calling the abrupt transformation of what had been pitched as a federal
“presidential library” into a privately run center an “institutional bait and
switch.” (On Tuesday, the judge denied the
city’s motion to dismiss the suit and allowed it to proceed.)
Robbin Cohen, the executive director of the
Obama Foundation, said in an interview that digitization had been part of the
vision from the beginning. “The main goal,” she said, is making the Obama White
House records “as accessible and available to the public as possible.”
She declined to be specific about when the
decision to forgo a physical library altogether, and to opt out of any National
Archives presence in Chicago at all, was made, saying it resulted from an
“evolving discussion.”
Ms. Cohen emphasized that the center, while
privately run, would have public partnerships. Under an agreement reached last
May, it will include a 5,000-square-foot branch of the Chicago Public Library.
(The center’s buildings will have an estimated 325,000 gross square feet.)
And it will work with
the National Archives to borrow documents and artifacts for display in the
museum, which is headed by Louise Bernard, a former director of exhibitions at
the New York Public Library.
But the decision, she said, was driven just
as much by the logic of digitization. Under National Archives policy
researchers are not given access to paper originals when electronic versions
are available.
“Even if we were to build a physical
library at the center, the records would still be largely accessed digitally,”
she said.
As they are released, the documents will be
available through both the National Archives Catalog and a dedicated Barack Obama Presidential Library website. As for
research support, a spokeswoman for the National Archives said it would have
“the same dedicated kinds of staff” for the Obama materials as it has at
existing presidential libraries, but would not say where they would be located
or provide further details.
Some scholars are alarmed by the decision.
“The absence of a true Obama presidential library will have the effect of
discouraging serious and potentially critical research into the Obama
presidency,” said David Garrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and the
author of “Rising Star,” a
nearly 1,500-page biography of Mr. Obama.
Others take a cautiously sanguine view. Mr.
Zelizer, the Princeton historian, said there was “enthusiasm for sure” about
digital access, but uncertainty over whether the new model would improve or
worsen the known
frustrations of the current libraries, like huge backlogs in
processing and protectiveness around politically sensitive documents.
Ultimately, some in
the presidential library system say, the move to a digital model is the future,
like it or not.
But the realities of money and technology
“cannot be denied.”
“Let’s give the
digital a try,” she wrote, “before giving in to dismay.”
Correction:
An earlier version of this
article misstated the number of buildings planned for the Obama Presidential
Center. It is four, not three
Courtesy of the Obama Foundation.
Obama's dream of a monument to himself in Chicago suffers a blow from a judge he appointed
Hopes for timely groundbreaking for the "Obama Presidential Center" in Chicago suffered a blow yesterday in a federal courtroom. A federal judge appointed to the bench by Barack Obama gave the go-ahead for a lawsuit that will delay, and quite possibly end, the plan to build and operate the monument as a center for extolling the sheer wonderfulness of Barack and Michelle Obama. The lawsuit, brought by Protect Our Parks, challenges the legality of handing over 20 acres of irreplaceable lakefront park land for 99 years to a private interest group, the Obama Foundation, which enjoys tax deductibility for donations to it but is unaccountable to any elected representatives of the people.
Courtesy of the Obama Foundation.
Michael Tarm of the AP lays out the basic facts of the news:
U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey heard arguments last week on the city's motion to dismiss the suit and was largely focused on whether the group had standing to sue.
The granting of standing to the plaintiffs is critical, for that was probably the best hope of the Obamas to quash the lawsuit right away.
In its 2018 suit, Protect Our Parks accused the city of illegally transferring parkland to a private entity, The Obama Foundation, effectively "gifting" prized land to a Chicago favorite son. The group said city officials manipulated the approval process and tinkered with legislation to skirt long-standing laws designed to ensure residents have unobstructed access to lakeside parks."Defendants have chosen to deal with it in a classic Chicago political way … to deceive and seemingly legitimize an illegal land grab," the lawsuit says.To make the park available for the project, the Chicago Park District first sold the land to the city for $1. Illinois legislators amended the state's Illinois Aquarium and Museum Act to include presidential libraries as an exception to the no-development rules if there's a compelling public interest. The Chicago City Council approved the project by a 47-to-1 vote last May.The Obama Foundation, a private nonprofit, would pay $10 to the city for use of the parkland for 99 years, cover the costs of building the complex and be responsible for covering operating costs for 99 years. Once built, the Obama Presidential Center's physical structures would be transferred to the city for free, meaning the city would formally own the center but not control what happens there.
This report obscures the critical factor: the state legislation allowed the construction of "presidential libraries," which are owned by U.S. taxpayers and run by the National Archives in the public interest. The Obama Foundation switched the planned facility to a purely private entity, designed, built, and operated for its own purposes — my take is that it is a monument to Obama (curiously, shaped like a cenotaph) and a center for political organizing. Not a single book or government document would be housed there. It would be run at the whim of the Obama Foundation, glorifying the man whom few would ever call modest.
The term for this sort of maneuver is "bait and switch," and I think it is a solid legal claim. The legislation does not authorize a private monument.
Judge Blakey was appointed to the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in 2014 by President Obama. His is twice a graduate of Notre Dame University, with undergraduate and law diplomas from the school.
Judge Blakely also threw out what I regard as a far-fetched argument that the First Amendment rights of the plaintiffs would be violated because the facility would be used for political speech with which they might disagree.
One claim Blakey tossed Tuesday was that taxpayers' First Amendment rights would be infringed upon because tax money would be spent to reconfigure roads and traffic. The suit argued that taxpayers would thus subsidize any partisan political activity by Obama at the center.
The immediate consequence of the ruling is the start of discovery, as the Washington Examiner explains:
The judge's ruling means the hearing determining the parameters for discovery in the case will take place Feb. 27. Because discovery may take months, the judge's decision will delay construction on the center even if it is later approved.
I expect fireworks at the hearing next week. If I were the plaintiffs' counsel, I would demand discovery of a huge range of communications of the Obama Foundation and the Obamas themselves with any political figures in Chicago and the State of Illinois. Given that the city and state are strongholds of the Democrats and notorious for corruption, the possibility of embarrassing emails or letters, and memoranda of conversations, is not negligible. In that environment, people may feel safe from hostile scrutiny.
Incidentally, Protect Our Parks is vehement that its members do not oppose construction of a monument elsewhere, and they even point to a plot of vacant land on the Southside of Chicago that is not park land. But it is not lakefront property, so it is much less prestigious and visible. Less personal glory for Obama. But if part of the aim of the facility is to help "urban youth," it would be located in the midst of a community with many, many more minority young people than live in and around Jackson Park.
Hat tip: Peter von Buol
THE (REALITY) OF THE GLOBALIST DEMOCRAT PARTY AS IT SERVES THE RICH, “CHEAP” LABOR ILLEGALS and MUSLIMS:
Anti-Semitic, open borders for cheaper labor and funded by criminal banksters… and these pols are making vast fortunes sucking the blood of America!
We must not let them cheat their way to power over the rest of us. Their ongoing vote fraud must be stopped and the Democrats need to take a look at themselves and at what they have become. It's not a pretty picture. What they have become threatens to destroy the greatest nation on the planet and they are doing it on purpose. They have nothing but contempt for the US as founded and for those of us who love this country. PATRICIA McCARTHY – AMERICAN THINKER
“Then we suffered the rattling election of Barack Obama, whose active membership in a white-, Jewish-, and America-hating church was well known to the electorate. His close personal relationship with the likes of his adored Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan was no secret. Obama was open about his goals. He told us he was out to "fundamentally transform America" and the world.” ALAN BERGSTEIN
ISLAMIST BARACK OBAMA
*
“Of course, one of the main reasons the nation is now “divided, resentful and angry” is because race-baiting, Islamist, class warrior Barack Hussein Obama was president for eight long years." MATTHEW VADUM
*
"But the Obamas are the center of the most delusional cult of personality that the media has yet spawned. And so we get bizarre pieces like these." MONICA SHOWALTER
*
"Along with Obama, Pelosi and Schumer are responsible for incalculable damage done to this country over the eight years of that administration." PATRICIA McCARTHY
Farrakhan: ‘Wicked Jews’ Using Me to ‘Break up the Women’s Movement’
1:12
The Times of Israel reports: Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan blamed “the wicked Jews” for the crisis over anti-Semitism and the Women’s March.
“The most beautiful sight that I could lay eyes on [was] when I saw, the day after Trump was elected, women from all over the world were standing in solidarity, and a black woman is the initiator of it,” said Farrakhan, referring to Tamika Mallory, a leader of the Women’s March who has lionized Farrakhan and refused to condemn his pervasive anti-Semitism.
“The wicked Jews want to use me to break up the women’s movement,” Farrakhan continued on Sunday during his address at the Nation of Islam’s Savior’s Day conference in Chicago. “It ain’t about Farrakhan, it’s about women all over the world (who) have the power to change the world.” He also praised Mallory’s co-organizers Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian American who has been highly critical of Israel, and Carmen Perez, who reportedly made anti-Semitic comments at Women’s March planning meetings.
"Then we suffered the rattling election of Barack Obama, whose active membership in a white-, Jewish-, and America-hating church was well known to the electorate. His close personal relationship with the likes of his adored Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan was no secret. Obama was open about his goals. He told us he was out to "fundamentally transform America" and the world." ALAN BERGSTEIN
BARACK OBAMA’S NOT SO SECRET PRO-MU$LIM, ANTI-SEMITIC MOVE FOR A THIRD TERM FOR LIFE.
"When former president Barack Obama, former president Bill Clinton and Eric Holder, a top DOJ official in both administrations, have been caught hanging around with Farrakhan, there’s a racism problem." DANIEL GREENFIELD
"Then we suffered the rattling election of Barack Obama, whose active membership in a white-, Jewish-, and America-hating church was well known to the electorate. His close personal relationship with the likes of his adored Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan was no secret. Obama was open about his goals. He told us he was out to "fundamentally transform America" and the world." ALAN BERGSTEIN
Attorney General Eric Holder: Tim Geithner can be sure he won't be hounded about his tax-dodging by his colleague Eric Holder, US Attorney General. Judicial Watch strongly opposed Holder because of his terrible ethics record, which includes: obstructing an FBI investigation of the theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory; rejecting multiple requests for an independent counsel to investigate alleged fundraising abuses by then-Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton White House; undermining the criminal investigation of President Clinton by Kenneth Starr in the midst of the Lewinsky investigation; and planning the violent raid to seize then-six-year-old Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint in order to return him to Castro's Cuba. JUDICIAL WATCH
BARCK HUSSEIN OBAMA’S MUSLIM HERITAGE
Earlier this month, jihadists of the Al-Shabaab terror group hijacked a bus heading to Garissa and ordered all the passengers to exit the vehicle. The assailants asked for identification cards, then proceeded to separate the Muslims from the Christians.
When two Christians refused to recite the Islamic statement of faith, or Shahada, they were executed.
THE 10 MOST DESTRUCTIVE AMERICANS OF MY 8 DECADES
And the "just-missed-the-list" of dishonorable mentions.
Reprinted from American Thinker.
America has undergone enormous change during the nearly eight decades of my life. Today, America is a bitterly divided, poorly educated and morally fragile society with so-called mainstream politicians pushing cynical identity politics, socialism and open borders. The president of the United States is threatened with impeachment because the other side doesn’t like him. The once reasonably unbiased American media has evolved into a hysterical left wing mob. How could the stable and reasonably cohesive America of the 1950s have reached this point in just one lifetime? Who are the main culprits? Here’s my list of the 10 most destructive Americans of the last 80 years.
10) Mark Felt – Deputy director of the FBI, aka “Deep Throat” during the Watergate scandal. This was the first public instance of a senior FBI officially directly interfering in America’s political affairs. Forerunner of James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe.
9) Bill Ayers– Represents the deep and ongoing leftist ideological damage to our education system. An unrepentant American terrorist who evaded punishment, he devoted his career to radicalizing American education and pushing leftist causes. Ghost wrote Obama’s book, “Dreams of My Father.”
8) Teddy Kennedy – Most folks remember Teddy as the guy who left Mary Joe Kopechne to die in his car at Chappaquiddick. The real damage came after he avoided punishment for her death and became a major Democrat force in the US Senate, pushing through transformative liberal policies in health care and education. The real damage was the 1965 Hart-Cellar immigration bill he pushed hard for that changed the quota system to increase the flow of third world people without skills into the US and essentially ended large-scale immigration from Europe.
7) Walter Cronkite – Cronkite was a much beloved network anchor who began the politicalization of America’s news media with his infamous broadcast from Vietnam that described the Tet Offensive as a major victory for the Communists and significantly turned the gullible American public against the Vietnam War. In fact, the Tet offensive was a military disaster for the NVA and Viet Cong, later admitted by North Vietnamese military leaders. Decades later Cronkite admitted he got the story wrong. But it was too late. The damage was done.
6) Bill and Hillary Clinton—It’s difficult to separate Team Clinton. Bill’s presidency was largely benign as he was a relative fiscal conservative who rode the remaining benefits of the Reagan era. But his sexual exploits badly stained the Oval Office and negatively affected America’s perception of the presidency. In exchange for financial support, he facilitated the transfer of sensitive military technology to the Chinese. Hillary, a Saul Alinsky acolyte, is one of the most vicious politicians of my lifetime, covering up Bill’s sexual assaults by harassing and insulting the exploited women and peddling influence around the globe in exchange for funds for the corrupt Clinton Foundation. She signed off on the sale of 20% of the US uranium reserve to the Russians after Bill received a $500,000 speaking fee in Moscow and the foundation (which supported the Clinton’s regal lifestyle) received hundreds of millions of dollars from those who benefited from the deal. Between them, they killed any honor that might have existed in the dark halls of DC.
5) Valerie Jarrett - The Rasputin of the Obama administration. A Red Diaper baby, her father, maternal grandfather and father-in-law (Vernon Jarrett who was a close friend and ally of Obama mentor Frank Marshall Davis) were hardcore Communists under investigation by the U.S. government. She has been in Obama’s ear for his entire political career pushing a strong anti-American, Islamist, anti-Israeli, socialist/communist, cling-to-power agenda.
4) Jimmy Carter - Carter ignited modern day radical Islam by abandoning the Shah and paving the way for Ayatollah Khomeini to take power in Tehran. Iran subsequently became the main state sponsor and promoter of international Islamic terrorism. When Islamists took over our embassy in Tehran, Carter was too weak to effectively respond thus strengthening the rule of the radical Islamic mullahs.
3) Lyndon Johnson – Johnson turned the Vietnam conflict into a major war for America. It could have ended early if he had listened to the generals instead of automaker Robert McNamara. The ultimate result was: 1) 58,000 American military deaths and collaterally tens of thousands of American lives damaged; and 2) a war that badly divided America and created left wing groups that evaded the draft and eventually gained control of our education system. Even worse, his so-called War on Poverty led to the destruction of American black families with a significant escalation of welfare and policies designed to keep poor families dependent on the government (and voting Democrat) for their well-being. He deliberately created a racial holocaust that is still burning today. A strong case could be made for putting him at the top of this list.
2) Barack Hussein Obama - Obama set up America for a final defeat and stealth conversion from a free market society to socialism/communism. As we get deeper into the Trump presidency, we learn more each day about how Obama politicized and compromised key government agencies, most prominently the FBI, the CIA and the IRS, thus thoroughly shaking the public’s confidence in the federal government to be fair and unbiased in its activities. He significantly set back race and other relations between Americans by stoking black grievances and pushing radical identity politics. Obama’s open support for the Iranian mullahs and his apologetic “lead from behind” foreign policy seriously weakened America abroad. His blatant attempt to interfere in Israel’s election trying to unseat Netanyahu is one of the most shameful things ever done by an American president.
1) John Kerry – Some readers will likely say Kerry does not deserve to be number one on this list. I have him here because I regard him as the most despicable American who ever lived. After his three faked Purple Hearts during his cowardly service in Vietnam, he was able to leave the US Navy early. As a reserve naval officer and in clear violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, he traveled to Paris and met privately with the NVA and the Viet Cong. He returned to the United States parroting the Soviet party line about the war and testified before Congress comparing American soldiers to the hordes of Genghis Khan. It was a clear case of treason, giving aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war. We got a second bite of the bitter Kerry apple when as Obama’s secretary of state, he fell into bed with the Iranian (“Death to America”) mullahs giving them the ultimate green light to develop nuclear weapons along with billions of dollars that further supported their terrorist activities. Only the heroic Swift Vets saved us from a Manchurian Candidate Kerry presidency. Ultimately we got Obama.
Dishonorable Mentions! (Just missed the list)
John Brennan –Obama’s CIA director who once voted for Communist Gus Hall for president. A key member of the Deep State who severely politicized the CIA. Called President Trump treasonous for meeting with the president of Russia.
Jane Fonda – movie actress who made the infamous trip to Vietnam during the war in support of the Communists. She represents hard left Hollywood that has done so much damage to our culture.
Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin – Both revered entertainers helped usher in the prevailing drug culture. Joplin personally suffered the consequences. Karma’s a bitch.
Robert Johnson /BET – Helped popularize ho’s, bitches and pimps while making millions on great hits such as “Jigga my Nigga”, “Big Pimpin’”, “Niggas in Paris” and “Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.” Many scholars within the African American community maintain that BET perpetuates and justifies racism by adopting the stereotypes held about African Americans, affecting the psyche of young viewers through the bombardment of negative images of African Americans. Who can disagree?
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr./The New York Times – Once the gold standard of American journalism, the paper always had a liberal tilt and occasionally made bad mistakes. As the years have gone along, the paper has slid further and further left and today is virtually the primary propaganda arm of the increasingly radical Democrat Party. Still retains influence in Washington and New York.
George Soros – Jewish former Nazi collaborator in his native Hungary who as a self-made billionaire has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into left wing groups and causes. The damage he has caused is difficult to measure, but it’s certainly large. He has funded much of the effort to kill the Trump presidency.
Frank Marshall Davis - Anti-white, black Bolshevik, card-carrying Soviet agent. Probable birth father and admitted primary mentor of young Barak Hussein Obama.
