Ryan ChartrandIf you are the president of the United States, you can build your legacy one of two ways. You can do such a great job in office that the world remembers you warmly long after you’re gone, or you can spend a lot of money and hire people to rewrite history in the hopes that you’ll come off looking better.
George W. Bush has chosen the latter path.
How else can you explain the recent news that the president and his associates hope to fundraise $500 million to build a presidential library in Dallas. That’s right, $500 million for a library! A library for a president with an approval rating of 36 percent!
When the numbing pain in your head subsides, try to recall that when Bill Clinton funded his presidential library, Republicans went nuts over the ridiculous cost. That ridiculous cost was $165 million, certainly pricy, but still nowhere near the $500 million for Bush’s library (I can’t help but repeat that absurd number).
Also, let’s not forget that Clinton actually needed the extra space for his library, as it features over 75 million pages dedicated to preserving the written record of his presidency. I sincerely doubt Bush wants to preserve any papers from his presidency, whether it’s the faulty pre-war intelligence reports or those memos titled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U.S.”
So what will Bush fill his library with instead?
Funny you should ask, because according to Thomas DeFrank of the New York Daily News, the library’s centerpiece will be its “Institute for Democracy.” However, don’t let the name fool you. One Bush insider confessed to DeFrank that the purpose of the institute will be to hire conservative scholars and “give them money to write papers and books favorable to the president’s policies.”
Wait a minute, I thought Fox News already did that for free.
Kidding aside though, the picture now becomes clear. This library isn’t really a library at all – just another political tool used to clean up the president’s tattered image. Granted ,they need $500 million to do it.
Fortunately, like many of the president’s policies, this plan to rewrite history probably won’t work either. The reason is obvious according to Robert Elsberg of the Los Angeles Times: “If someone is so hugely unpopular that you need half a billion dollars to make him sound favorable, why would you think anybody would want to spend money to buy a hardcover about the fellow?”
Nevertheless, this fact won’t stop the president and his fellow ideologists from trying. DeFrank says that Team Bush hopes to get “megadonations” of $10 million or $20 million from “wealthy heiresses, Arab nations and captains of industry.” It’s funny how they aren’t interested in getting support from the “plain speaking” folk Bush always seems to associate himself with.
But what’s the big deal? After all, people are entitled to donate private funds to whoever they want to help, even if it is an enormous waste.
The main problem is that these donations can be done confidentially, and if Republicans were worried what favors Bill Clinton might do with $165 million, just imagine what Bush will do with half a billion in giveaways.
The other problem is that symbolically, our president should set a better example. He shouldn’t spend his time praising the money wasted on a self-absorbed and disingenuous project. To be fair though, looking back on the past six years of waste and lies, I guess this library is actually as symbolic a testament to the Bush legacy as any monument could be.
Patrick Molnar is a business sophomore and Mustang Daily political columnist.