tions tend to refl ect on a president’s grand achieve- ments, glossing over blunders and boondoggles. Perhaps the most noteworthy artifact is the bull-
horn Bush used to make his now-famous speech — “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you!”— that rallied emergency workers in the wake of 9/11. NRA-types will enjoy seeing the
pistol seized from Saddam Hus- sein when he was captured during “Operation Red Dawn” in 2003. I was also impressed by life-sized statues of both Bush presidents — 41 and 43 — in a courtyard. But the most powerful artifact
It’s easy to criticize Bush for the Iraq war, but the museum suggests that Bush’s greatest achievement was preventing another attack on U.S. soil after 9/11.
at SMU is a hunk of steel salvaged from the second col- lapsed World Trade Center tower. There is no Cold War slab of the Berlin Wall inside
the Bush Library. Its equivalent is a twisted piece of steel that speaks volumes to America’s steel-like re- solve in the dark days of 9/11. What also confuses the public about
presidential libraries are the nonprofi t centers and in- stitutes associated with them. These are think tanks aimed at continuing the public-service missions of for- mer presidents. Taxpayer dollars don’t fi nance them. The Carter Library in Atlanta, for example, docu- ments our 39th president’s career. The Carter Center, by contrast, is a nongovernmental organization that grapples with river blindness and election transparency. So opening later this sum-
mer, physically attached to the Bush Presidential Library run by NARA, will be the Bush Institute, whose big-forest aim is to pro-
mote freedom at home and abroad. The public should understand that, despite some overlap, these are two distinctive institutions. The atmosphere around the Bush Presidential Li-
brary when I was given a walkaround resembled that of a theatrical troupe gearing up for its opening night curtain draw. Crafts people, design mavens, window
Official Presidential Libraries
Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum 210 Parkside Drive West Branch, Iowa 52358 319-643-5301
www.hoover.archives.gov
Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum 4079 Albany Post Road Hyde Park, New York 12538 845-486-7770
www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu
Harry S. Truman Library and Museum 500 W. U.S. Highway 24
Independence, Missouri 64050 816-268-8200
www.trumanlibrary.org
Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum 200 S.E. 4th Street Abilene, Kansas 67410 785-263-6700
www.eisenhower.archives.gov
54 NEWSMAX | MAY 2013
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Columbia Point
Boston, Massachusetts 02125 617-514-1600
www.jfklibrary.org
LBJ Presidential Library 2313 Red River St. Austin, Texas 78705 512-721-0200
www.lbjlibrary.org
BACKGROUND/ISTOCKPHOTO / BUILDINGS/WIKIPEDIA
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