Competition for Dubya's presidential library doesn't include Yale

"Bill Clinton is a rock star," said Skip Rutherford, head of Clinton's nonprofit foundation that built the $165 million library and continues his post-presidential AIDS-fighting and racial reconciliation initiatives. "He is Elvis."

His drawing power will be on full display this week, when the current and former U.S. presidents, foreign leaders and celebrities are expected to be among 30,000 invited guests gathered on the library lawn, overlooking the Arkansas River in downtown Little Rock.

Thus CNN reports the opening of Bill Clinton's new presidential library in his home state of Arkansas. But today's Houston Chronicle includes an AP story, entitled "Five vie to land library," on the competition among cities and universities to host the presidential library of his successor, George W. Bush:

Bush has not chosen a site, and those plans "will be announced at some point," said White House spokesman Taylor Gross.

The cities and educational institutions that are listed in the AP story as competing for the Bush-43 article are —

• Baylor University: In Waco; the Baptist university is about 30 miles east of Bush's Crawford ranch.
• Southern Methodist University: In Dallas; the alma mater of first lady Laura Bush.
• University of Texas at Austin: Where Laura Bush earned her master's degree, the alma mater of one of the couple's twin daughters and the home of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum.
• Texas A&M University: In College Station; home to the presidential library of Bush's father.
• Texas Tech University: In Lubbock, 110 miles north of Bush's childhood home in Midland.
• Midland College: Near Bush's childhood home.
• City of Arlington: Where Bush was managing partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team before he was elected governor.

Counting Clinton's, there are twelve existing presidential libraries scattered around the country. A considerable amount of ego gratification and a certain amount of political pork-barrelling is involved in these institutions. But each successive administration generates its own increasingly massively sized archives of paperwork and other materials that become legitimate grist for historians, and some sort of accessible and responsible repository must be set up for them, so I'm not much offended by their being distributed outside of Washington.

Certainly when I was a student from 1975-1980, I enjoyed the broad sloping lawns and tasteful fountains and plazas of the LBJ Library because they were adjacent to my three other primary campus hang-outs at UT-Austin — Townes Hall (home of Texas Law School), the Music Building-East (home of the Longhorn Band), and Memorial Stadium. I recall some snickering over the LBJ Library being sited at UT-Austin because it was not LBJ's alma mater; but LBJ certainly had family ties to Austin and had long chosen to underplay his own nearby alma mater (then Southwest Texas State Teachers College, now Texas State University-San Marcos). Neither, of course, did Bush-41 ever attend Texas A&M or live in College Station, Texas, where his library is sited; the University of Houston might have made more historical sense, given that G.H.W. Bush lived and lives in Houston and once represented one of its congressional districts, but A&M is bigger and has vastly more political clout.

Putting JFK's library at Harvard was, I suppose, a comparatively easy and apt decision. Unremarkable too, I suppose, were the decisions to put Hoover's in West Branch, Iowa; FDR's in Hyde Park, New York; Truman's in Independence, Missouri; Ike's in Abeline, Kansas; Gerry Ford's in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Carter's in Atlanta, Georgia; Reagan's in Simi Valley, California; and Clinton's in Little Rock.

Conspicuously absent from the list of existing sites for presidential libraries, however — and from any mention as a serious candidate for Dubya's — is the college or law school alma mater of our last three presidents: Yale University of New Haven, Connecticut. Shunned by Elvis, and shocked by the still-smoldering wreck of alumnus John F. Kerry's presidential campaign, Yale no doubt continues to keep its powder dry and await a grateful presidential alumnus acceptable to its blue-state values.

Indeed, a childish part of me wishes Dubya would choose Yale out of spite — for such it would have to be, and so it would be perceived and received. I imagine tasteful marble plinths, imported from the Texas hill country, each supporting a polished brass spittoon tastefully underwritten by Skoal Tobacco — and perhaps an ivy-covered "Mandate Monument" in the center of footpaths under shade trees for the perpetual protesters.

Realistically, though, there's no chance that George W. Bush's presidential library will be sited anywhere outside Texas, and my guess is that Baylor and Waco probably have the inside track. That'll leave the Yalies plenty of opportunity for self-righteous smirking, and everyone will be happy.

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Update (Sun Nov 14 @ 2:15pm): Prof. Bainbridge quotes a few archly choice lines from The Economist about the Clinton Library.

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Update (Mon Nov 15 @ 9:40pm):  My commenters below have exposed and corrected my mistaken assumptions about the locations and university affiliations of some of the presidential libraries listed above.  Mea culpa, and thanks as always to them for their courtesy,  diligence, and shared knowledge.