Would someone please tell me why Bush is building a 500 million dollar presidential library at SMU when no one will be able to access the documents therein for five years?!
Since 2001, the government has added five years of delay into the process of releasing presidential records...These are statistics from the Reagan Presidential Library -- their official estimates of response times that they send to you when you request documents. The delay has risen from 18 months in 2001 to 78 months today.
http://www.gwu.edu/...
What happens between 2008 and 2013 while the librarians are carefully nurturing a five year backlog of records requests? Speculation after the jump.
History With the Bark On?
It appears that the G.W. Bush's Presidential library in Dallas will not be fulfilling records requests until 2013 at the earliest. Given this administrations overarching interest in secrecy and presidential perogatives, we can expect that five years would be an optimistic estimate. Shouldn't this be called something other than a library?
"The late President Ronald Reagan left office 18 years ago, in January 1989, and the Reagan Library began making his White House records public in 1994, as the law envisions, with most restrictions expiring by the 12-year mark, or January 2001. The Freedom of Information Act says federal agencies have to respond to requests for records within 20 working days (roughly four weeks), yet if you write the Reagan Library today asking for a specific record, the Library staff will write you back with an estimate of 78 months (six and a half years!) you will have to wait before they complete processing. At the 12-year mark, that is, in early 2001, the Reagan Library's estimated response time was only 18 months.
--Testimony from National Security Archive Director Thomas Blanton before House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives
Contrast the above with the LBJ library in Austin. At the dedication in 1971, LBJ said that his library would be a place where history could be seen "with the bark off." "Ironically, the LBJ library has probably done more to advance the reputation of its subject more than any other presidential library--not by design, but simply by releasing his telephone tapes into the public sphere." (Paul Burka)
It seems to me that if I was a librarian who was, say, five years from retirement, I couldn't ask for a better job than a position at the G.W. Bush presidential library.
Why the arbitrary delay? Is it to provide us with time to cool down a little and learn to appreciate all that our leader has in common with Winston Churchill? Or is is meant to be a kind of statute of limitations, a way for former administration officials to go on with their lives without legal intrusions from the past? You tell me.
Seems like a presidential library for George W Bush shouldn't cost 500 million dollars for a bathroom stall and a copy of "The Pet Goat".
--anonymous internet wag
And what would be the best use of this shining monument to muscular democracy in the five+ years before scholars can access any records? Let's hear some suggestions!