Clintons’ critics plan 2nd library [What a hoot!]

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BY ELISA CROUCH

As former president Clinton embarks on ambitious plans for his post-presidency, so too, do his detractors.

A group of outspoken Clinton critics announced last week their intent to build an unofficial version of Clinton’s presidential library in Little Rock, filled with rooms such as The Hillary Hall of Shame, Pardons for Dollars and National Insecurity Hall.

It will be focused on scandal and "the truth," which is something they believe the Clinton library will lack. "This isn’t a personal vendetta against the Clintons at all," said Richard Erickson, the Houston businessman behind the "Counter Clinton Library" idea. "It is a quest for truth. It’s not to hurt anybody. It’s to enlighten them."

Those behind the idea vow it’s legitimate. Responses in central Arkansas were a mix of intrigue, disgust and amazement that the anti-Clinton sentiment not only continues but also could spark a downtown monument challenging his library. "It’s just unbelievable," said Barry Travis, executive director of the Little Rock Convention and Tourism Bureau, after learning of the idea. "It’s hard to know what to say about it."

Word began to spread about the counter-Clinton library last week via the Internet, where conservative news group NewsMax. com publicized that the facility would be built within walking distance of the future Clinton Presidential Center in downtown Little Rock.

Erickson and his partner, John LeBoutillier, a Republican and former New York congressman, say they have several downtown sites in mind and posted intentions on their own Web site, which states the project’s mission: "This library will be devoted to setting the record straight about the Clintons’ White House years — and about Hillary’s certain campaign to become the next President of the United States."

Erickson and LeBoutillier already are appearing on radio and television talk shows to publicize their idea. They are in the process of forming a nonprofit fund-raising organization and are trying to enlist more supporters.

They say the project would be a multimillion-dollar venture but declined to reveal how much money has been raised so far.

Despite the controversies surrounding other former presidents, no presidential library has inspired a counter institution. Erickson and LeBoutillier’s would be the first.

Once complete, the $160 million Clinton Presidential Center will include an archives and a policy center and the Clinton School for Public Service affiliated with the University of Arkansas System. The glass-and-steel structure will sit on a 28-acre city park named for the former president. City leaders credit the project for jump-starting development in downtown.

Clinton library planners predict the campus will attract more than 300,000 visitors a year. Those who support a second Clinton library say it would increase tourism even more. "From a business standpoint, it’s a hell of an idea," Little Rock political consultant Jerry Russell said. "It would be profitable a lot of the time. People are more interested in negative things than they are in positive things."

Intrigued by the concept, Russell said he sent initial news of the concept Thursday to about 100 people who subscribe to his e-mail group.

Tourism leaders in central Arkansas, however, dismissed the counter-Clinton library as a publicity stunt. They wonder how legitimate the plans are and expressed concern that a museum based on negativity would be damaging. "It was really strange. What are they trying to gain?" asked Steve Arrison, executive director of the Hot Springs Advertising and Promotions Commission. "I’d hate to see something that would be a parody of something that will be good for the state of Arkansas."

Meanwhile, Erickson and LeBoutillier are talking up their plans. From midday Thursday through the weekend, the two will have appeared on a number of shows, ranging from Hannity & Colmeson Fox News to the Marc Bernier Show, a conservative radio program in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Norma Poet, 78, was at home outside San Francisco on Friday when she heard pundits discussing the idea on CNN. Distraught, she called her sister, then later the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "This is the dredge of the septic tank if you know what septic tanks are like," she said. "This is the bottom."

On the Counter Clinton Library Web site, donors are urged to "to join other patriotic Americans who remain disgusted with the Clintons behavior." The site directs donations to a Little Rock post-office box that a local hospital employee now empties regularly. "This is not going to be some smarmy, putting-out-blue-cocktail dresses-with-stains-on-them," said Ron Crane, a Little Rock health-care project specialist. "It will definitely be a classy endeavor, and will be nothing but the truth."

Once built, the Clinton Presidential Center will be the 11 th presidential library used by the National Archives and Records Administration to store presidential records. The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace is not part of the system but operates privately.

Any unofficial Clinton library wouldn’t have access to display these papers, which historians will use to study, record and analyze the Clinton presidency.

Skip Rutherford, chief Clinton library planner, said he didn’t know much about the counter-Clinton library idea, but didn’t sound impressed. "Clinton haters, they will do almost anything," said Rutherford, president of the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, the group raising private funds to build the library. "The truthful representation of history is the fact that the 80 million-plus documents of the Clinton years are there. The truthfulness of history is the openness of the documents."

Like all presidential libraries, Clinton’s will include a museum. There, visitors will see a replica of the Oval Office and learn about the former president’s childhood, rise to power, policy achievements and struggles.

The archival components of presidential library systems are generally regarded as nonpartisan. Library museums, however, are often criticized for their positive bias.

Presentations at presidential museums changed over time. On opening day in 1971, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas, had scant mention of the Vietnam War, whereas now it examines the war with considerable detail. "History never speaks with one voice," a plaque reads at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in Independence, Mo. "It is always under debate — a manuscript that is continually being revised, and is never complete."

In an interview last December, Clinton said his museum won’t avoid negative issues and will address the scandals that marred his presidency. "Impeachment? Absolutely," he said. "One day we’ll have some presidential historians who know something about what went on, who don’t have such a vested interest in appearing on television. What I did was a matter of record, but what I want is the whole record out."

But the co-founders of the counter-Clinton library idea say they have little faith in how the official library will present history. "They’ll get this whitewashed version and walk out with smiles on their faces," Erickson said.

Erickson and LeBoutillier say they want displays on Travelgate, overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom by fund-raisers, and Clinton’s controversial lastminute pardons, among others.

As for Clinton’s wife, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, "We intend to serve as a permanent thorn in her side," the Counter Clinton Library Web site says. "What we want to do here is tell the truth about what they did in the White House and their whole public careers, and try to defuse them, and stop her from being president in six years," LeBoutillier told Fox News on Thursday.

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2002

Answers

Response to ClintonsÂ’ critics plan 2nd library [What a hoot!]

heh heh heh

I wonder if they're planning to make it look identical to the official one.

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2002


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