presidential libraries hold:
Collectively, our nation’s
2009 is tough sledding. But a case can — and is — being made in Dallas. U.S. presidential libraries are now
a great American tradition. They are the single most-eff ective way for former presidents to stay connected with fellow citizens, and hoist the vigor of their legacies up the fl agpole. Each presidential library speaks
to the character and personality of its namesake. And, I believe, the open- ing of their respective presidential libraries has helped Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton gal- vanize their reputations in the mod- ern imagination. Ford, for example, left offi ce after
having been defeated by incoming President Jimmy Carter in his re- election bid. He left offi ce under the cloud of pardoning former President Richard M. Nixon after Watergate. At the time, he was widely casti-
gated for letting Nixon off the hook, and the pardon may well have cost him the 1976 election. But Ford in- sisted the pardon was necessary for the sake of national healing after the gut-wrenching Watergate inquiry, and historians appear to have con- cluded that Ford was probably right. Reagan, of course, left Washing-
400 Million pages of documents
dinary. He had balanced the budget, presided over a period of peace and prosperity, and his presidential foun- dation became a global instrument for helping impoverished Third- World nations around the world do a better job of caring for their citizens. There was always a winsome
charisma to Clinton, and his post- presidential activities provided an ongoing stage for good works on the international stage. As for Bush, his fi ne memoir, De-
cision Points, followed by the dedica- tion of the library at SMU, constitutes the opening salvo of an attempt to highlight the positive aspects of the Bush years. So, do presidential libraries re-
10 Million photographs
ally have the power to transform a president’s legacy long after they say goodbye to the arena of politics? Bush may have put it best himself,
in his fi nal interview with CNN’s Larry King before leaving offi ce. After enduring so much — 9/11, Ka- trina, the Wall Street meltdown — he told King he would leave offi ce know- ing he had given the job his all. “There is no such thing as short-
ton under quite diff erent circum- stances. With the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union on the verge of fading into senescence, Reagan rode off into the sunset. He had arrived in the nation’s capital amid whispers that he was a second-rate actor and a third- rate intellect. It was only later, when historians
got a peek at his voluminous writings, that the complete picture emerged of a leader whose Irish bonhomie and one- liners belied a substantive intellect. It was a depth of thought easy to over- look while ABC’s Sam Donaldson was shouting questions to him on a nightly basis across a rope line.
Clinton’s repositioning in the hearts of his fellow Americans, meanwhile, was nothing short of extraor-
56 NEWSMAX | MAY 2013 15 Million feet of motion-picture fi lm
term history,” said Bush, who seemed at peace with leaving his ultimate evaluation in the hands of posterity. “I mean . . . people will look back and put this administration in perspec-
tive to those that have come before me, and those that will come after me. “And they will analyze whether or not decisions I
made [left] the country safer and, you know, more se- cure. And I am comfortable that I have given every de- cision a good hard look, and that I have given it my all, and that I put my country fi rst.” In the end, presidential libraries represent just the
early pages in the fi rst chapter of what will be decades of scholarly scrutiny to come. Students of history know that all presidents share
in common the Herculean burdens they shouldered as America’s commanders in chief. So perhaps it is only fi tting that in the face of history’s judgment, their librar- ies make the case that they did the best they could.
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