The Bush library: a smart compromise?

Dorothy Samuels in the New York Times has offered a very intelligent compromise for SMU on the issue of its accepting the somewhat tainted Bush presidential library. She proposes SMU accept the library but only on two conditions. First, the Bush administration rescinds Executive Order 13233, which cuts off a lot of scholarly access to presidential papers, and second, that the Bush administration reveals the names of the library's influence-buying donors (which may eventually happen with legislation being proposed by Nancy Pelosi, but who knows?).

Unfortunately, both of these issues -- paranoid secrecy and the influence of big money on politics -- cut to the heart of much of the Bush administration's thinking and methodology. So I'm willing to bet that the Bushes won't budge on either point. Recall the recent supposedly conciliatory State of the Union address by the president, followed immediately by the vice president's typically sparkling appearance on CNN, in which he declared that, unequivocally, je ne regret rien and screw you, Wolf Blitzer.

Also, alas, for those of us on the ground, as it were, the proposed solution won't address the large-elephant-footprint effects of the new library on the neighborhood (see below).

Still, Ms. Samuels' argument gets us away from -- on the one side -- the oppose-it-at-all-costs opponents who mostly seek a referundum on the administration's misdeeds and, on the other, the boosterish cheers coming from The Dallas Morning News' editorial board and op-ed page, which claim, in all seriousness, that the new library will make Dallas blossom into an intellectual's paradise.

I told you before: Stop laughing.