Why The Bush Library Is A Big, Fat Joke

One of the important things that former presidents do in addition to getting stuff named after them is dedicate themselves to building libraries where scholars and mere mortals can study the papers that represent the histories of their administrations.

As someone with an historical bent who happens to work in a rare book and manuscript library that houses the papers of several former and present congressfolk, I appreciate how important this is -- and therefore understand why George Bush's presidential library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas will be a big, fat joke.

This, in part, is because Bush and his administration have been obsessed with secrecy and its wicked stepson, lying, from the start.

One the first things that Bush did as president was to take a chainsaw to the 1978 Presidential Records Act, which was a response to clashes over who owned President Nixon's records, including Watergate era tape recordings. Under the act, the U.S. retains ownership and control of almost all such records whether they be housed in a presidential library, the National Archives or elsewhere.

The Decider got around this by issuing a little-noticed executive order with the Orwellian title of Further Implementation of the Presidential Records Act that effectively overturned that act, as well as a Supreme Court decision guaranteeing public access to presidential papers. Then there is the fact that a White House that boasts it has kept the homeland safe since 9/11 has inexplicably lost millions of emails, some of them undoubtedly chronicling administration misdeeds.

This is all a major victory by the crude calculus of Bush and the haughtily imperious Dick Cheney, while the loss to the American people and history is incalculable.