I’d never visited a Presidential Library before. Here’s a collection of observational odds and ends from visits to Bill Clinton’s and George W Bush’s.
Like their two-term administrations, I had the opportunity during a recent road trip to visit the William J. Clinton Presidential Center, Little Rock, AR, and the George W Bush Presidential Library in Dallas, TX back to back. I had never visited a presidential library before. While each of course strives to cast their former president in the best light, what I came away with was a distinction between the “man” and the “office” of President of the United States and a greater appreciation for the evolution of policies that are blamed on one president but are actually a continuation of policies started by previous ones.
For example, Ronald Reagan generally gets the credit for starting the big wave of modern deregulation in the US, but this was actually started by President Carter, who deregulated the trucking industry before Reagan got into office, and started the ball rolling on the deregulation of the electricity industry with legislation that broke open the monopoly franchise electric utilities had enjoyed for five decades.
Similarly, George Bush gets the credit or blame for hunting down terrorists around the world after declaring the “War on Terror” post 9/11, yet, as I learned at the Clinton Library, Clinton signed into law the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in 1996. I’m no lawyer or legal scholar but Section III of this law appears to lay the groundwork for the Bush administration’s global war on terrorists.
Clinton also signed an executive order (#13099) prohibiting transactions with terrorists who threaten the Middle East Peace Process. Ironically, this order only lists Islamic groups, including specific individuals like Osama bin Laden, but there’s no mention of, for example, Jewish terrorist groups, like the Settler movement, who were responsible for the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister, in 1995. These people are typically called right-wing activists, not terrorists, though it is hard to identify people who disrupted the ME peace process more than those guys. This is an interesting point, in that the Clinton Library focuses on Rabin’s leadership in the Oslo Accords of 1993, when Rabin and Arafat shook hands and made peace, such as it was for a short while.
Of course, every president has to be seen making an attempt at Middle East peace and Bush was no exception. But he kind of got distracted by the invasion of Iraq and the War in Afghanistan.
Other broad events highlighted at the Clinton Library include the Bosnian War and the fight for Kosovo (“not an American lost”), the budget crisis, and welfare reform. Monica Lewinsky is actually mentioned! The Little Rock Nine of 1957, a seminal event in the Civil Rights Movement, was a defining moment in Clinton’s formative years. Clinton apparently spent the least amount of time of any president in the Oval Office. His morning Jogs are a constant feature in the White House daily schedules on display. The first Ramadan celebration at the White House was held during Clinton’s years in office. He invited 3000 Americans to the White House during his tenure.
It’s pretty clear that Bill Clinton has sought a role on the world stage ever since his administration ended, and indeed he has been successful at this. Hillary’s White House ambitions will continue this in spades. Somehow, I got this feeling as well from his Library, that his legacy was to be an American president “for life.”
A small word of warning: You are not allowed to bring a water bottle into the Clinton Library. This kind of pissed me off. Although the Library is just off of the main area of downtown Little Rock, it takes up lots of green space along the river. It’s a manufactured green space in an urban environment.
The Bush Library, in contrast, has reserved parking spaces for hybrid gas-electric vehicles! Probably wouldn’t have guessed that one, right? While the Clinton building is modern and gleaming and open (lots of glass and natural light), the Bush Library is traditional, ornate, and neo-classical, and associated with Southern Methodist University. Bush emphasizes faith, family, and values, as one might expect from a Republican. Bush also emphasizes “place” in the exhibits of his upbringing, while Clinton emphasizes events. Both were from small towns. You would expect a huge emphasis on 9/11 and fighting the War on Terror, and of course there is. The other big exhibits are on No Child Left Behind legislation and AIDs relief in Africa.
Oh, and I found this to be a fascinating difference: The Clinton theatre where you watch the orientation video is movie-house style while Bush’s is church style, with pews!
One of the panels under “protecting the environment” describes the Bush’s Prairie Chapel Ranch. They must have quickly run out of other ideas.
Here’s a statistic from the Bush Library that kind of blew me away: In 1950, there were 16 workers for every one social security recipient. In 2005, the ratio was 3:1. In 2040, it is forecasted to be 2:1. Both presidents struggled with the budget but Bush ended up with a blank check for funding wars.
Finally, I find this to be the most insightful observation. Okay, I didn’t comb the entire place, but after spending about two hours in the Bush Library, except for an old group photo that included Dick Cheney, I saw no other mention or photo of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Powell, Wolfowitz, Gonzalez, Feith, Perl, Abrams, Libby, Hadley, Rice, and the other major figures in his administration (and the architects of the Iraq War). I don’t state this as gospel, but more to learn if anyone else can refute or corroborate this. There are one or two Internet entries that mention Cheney’s absence at the Bush Library and this article in Politico (http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/george-w-bush-library-more-911-less-cheney-and-rove-90609_Page3.html) offers some substantiation on the others. Although it is widely known that Bush had become estranged from many of these officials during the course of the presidency, the lack of visibility is striking, and a contrast to the Clinton Library.
I am a baseball fan so I have to mention this tidbit from the Bush Library. The president threw out the first pitch of the World Series in 2000 (Yankees vs Mets), and while he walked on the field, Derek Jeter yelled at him, “Don’t bounce it, they’ll boo you!” Bush commented afterwards: “That baseball felt like a shot put.”
Honestly, though, I came away with great sympathy for both individuals as men and leaders struggling to live up to the expectations of the office, including the use of America’s firepower and military technology on the world stage, cooperation with Congress, our nation’s enormous resource appetite and percentage of the global economy, as well as the expectations of the rest of the world. Both were presidents during a period of the “lone superpower,” which certainly made all of this even more difficult (or, maybe not?). Who knows what the future holds for these two men, but I thought it was pretty clear Bush wishes to leave the office behind and live out his legacy as a humbler member of the human race, while the more apt phrase for Clinton would be, “you can take Clintons out of the White House but you can’t take the White House out of the Clintons.”
Putting these learnings in context with Obama’s second term, I can possibly see why someone would want to be President of the USA, but why would you want to ever want be a second-term president?
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