G.W. Bush Library Fund Seeks $500 Million In "Donations!"

From Center for American Progress Action Fund
Action Report 2-27-08

In Nov. 2006, President Bush launched "an eye-popping, half-billion-dollar drive" to raise funds for his presidential library. That campaign finally paid off last week when officials at Southern Methodist University (SMU) announced that the Dallas-based university will be home to Bush's $200 million library -- despite protests from faculty, administrators, and staff. The library facility will also contain an institute that will sponsor programs designed to "promote the vision of the president" and "celebrate" Bush's presidency. University of Louisville Professor Benjamin Hufbauer, an art historian who has studied presidential libraries, said the model agreed to at SMU was "totally different" from the approaches at other universities with presidential libraries. The institute that is part of the complex "has a partisan agenda -- that's very significant," he said, adding, "academics everywhere should be concerned about this" because it "goes against the idea of dispassionate inquiry." Dr. Susanne Johnson, an associate professor at SMU, explained, "The whole purpose of a library is for unfettered, unbiased, critically reflective academic inquiry into the administration of a given presidency. It's not to cheer-lead for a particular president. It's not to be groupies."