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View Full Version : tPF Presidential Libraries Are a Scam. Could Obama Change That?



Green Arrow
05-07-2017, 03:25 PM
Via Politico (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/07/presidential-libraries-are-a-scam-could-obama-change-that-215109):


This week Barack Obama unveiled the plans for his presidential center, to be built in the historic Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago. Architects, city planners, educators, community organizers, activists, pundits, boosters and critics all have weighed in on the look and on the plans. But if you blinked, you might have missed something important: Obama will not follow the example of his 13 immediate predecessors. He will forego the creation of a traditional presidential library and museum.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)—which operates presidential library-museums for every president from Herbert Hoover through George W. Bush—won’t be operating either for Obama. His private Obama Foundation, not the government, will own and operate the museum. And there really won’t be a presidential library. The Obama Foundation will pay for NARA to digitize unclassified records and release them to the public as they become available, but the center’s “Library,” which may or may not house a local branch of the Chicago Public Library, will not contain or control presidential papers and artifacts, digital or otherwise. Instead, according to a NARA press release that called the museum “a new model for the preservation and accessibility of presidential records,” those records will be stored in “existing NARA facilities”—meaning one or more of the agency’s research or records centers across the country.

The notion that a federal presidential library would contain no papers, and not actually be federally operated, is astonishing. But to those like myself who have advocated for years—without much success—that it’s time to reform the broken presidential library system, it’s also an important positive development, and one that could be revolutionary.

So far, I like the direction Mr. Obama is going with for his Presidential Center. I hope his successors follow his lead.

DGUtley
05-07-2017, 03:31 PM
I hope you are right, but I wonder if it is really about the desire to control the content.

Green Arrow
05-07-2017, 03:33 PM
I hope you are right, but I wonder if it is really about the desire to control the content.

If so, why not just do as past presidents have and just revise the history?

DGUtley
05-07-2017, 03:39 PM
If so, why not just do as past presidents have and just revise the history?

Then, you are ok with it? I'm not. I'm critical of them all.

Green Arrow
05-07-2017, 03:41 PM
Then, you are ok with it? I'm not. I'm critical of them all.

I'm not okay with it, I just think if he wants to control what information is learned about his presidency by future generations there are much easier ways to go about it, including continuing the revisionist history scam of his predecessors.

Cletus
05-07-2017, 03:45 PM
I hope you are right, but I wonder if it is really about the desire to control the content.

I think that is exactly what it is. By privatizing it and leaving the Archives out of the decision making process, HE gets to decide what is made available to the public.

Chris
05-07-2017, 03:52 PM
I hope you are right, but I wonder if it is really about the desire to control the content.

Or to use it for political purposes.

"The goal of the campus, he said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, is to 'train the next generation of leadership' so 'they can take up the torch and lead the process of change in the future.'" @ https://www.wired.com/2017/05/obama-pioneers-new-approach-presidential-library/

Green Arrow
05-07-2017, 04:06 PM
Naturally, it's impossible for Obama to do anything right.

DGUtley
05-07-2017, 04:08 PM
Naturally, it's impossible for Obama to do anything right.

c'mon -- he is a political animal. The best since Reagan. You don't think we're right to be suspicious?

Green Arrow
05-07-2017, 04:16 PM
c'mon -- he is a political animal. The best since Reagan. You don't think we're right to be suspicious?

I'm a fan of being constructive. Be as suspicious as you like but regardless of motivations, when someone does something right, the constructive thing to do is support it, not react out of paranoia. If he misuses this new system I'll be one of the first to criticize him for it. Until then, what's the point?