Library of Lies and Propaganda

Kansas City Star
The BIG News (I guess nothing really important happened today). . .
. . . was opening of the William Clinton Presidential Library. "Like all presidential libraries, it's a permanent collection that presents political spin for the ages," writes Jeff Zeleny of the Chicago Tribune. I don't know that's true -- the Truman Library seems pretty balanced to me. It presents President Truman as a human being in a great office who did his imperfect best. Now that is a man I can honor.

It was a wet, rainy day in Little Rock (down on the "wrong side of the tracks"). I suppose even the clouds wept at the thought of the spin in the concrete -- and talk about spin! Clinton still can't face the fact that he and he alone was responsible for his conduct with Monica Lewinski and the fact that he lied to a Grand Jury. He has to blame the Republicans and Ken Starr (who, by the way, did a spectacular job in his investigation according to legal observors). Looks like what WJC needs more than anything is a psychiatrist!

Maybe what Congress should do is to pass a law saying that presidential libraries can't be planned (much less begun) until a certain number of years after the president dies. With the major ego gone, misinformation might not prevail. It is, after all, in the interest of future generations that the unvarnished truth be told.

"The impeachment exhibit, titled 'The Fight for Power,' depicts the entire scandal as Republican retaliation rooted out of jealously for Democratic success. There is no air of remorse for a despicable moral lapse or mention of responsibility for lying under oath to cover up an affair. The captions etched in glass, written by former White House speechwriters under Clinton's direction, declare: 'Politics of Persecution,' and 'A New Culture of Confrontation.'" So those are the names for lying to a Grand Jury and getting away with it (which he did, because "impeachment" meant nothing to him --conviction may have hurt).

So we have a library now honoring the President who did more to bring shame and disgust to the office than any other, including Richard Nixon. Nixon only protected his friends; Clinton proved himself to be a man without honor, truth or integrity.
Perhaps, though, there wouldn't have been a Clinton library if we'd waited until history judged his presidency. That is, I suppose, the best argument for going ahead with it.

Creating a library of lies, half-truths and propaganda because he wants to be remembered as a better man than he was puts him right up there with Lenin who said "A lie told often enough becomes the truth" and Goebbels, who acted on that premise.