What is a presidential library, and will Trump build his own ?
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The Pat Kenny Show. With Timber Living Log Cabins. Saturday and Sunday from 10am. On Newstalk. Conversation that counts.
After years of construction, almost a billion dollars in costs and controversy over the design, the Obama Presidential Library is set to open in just a few weeks' time in Chicago. Well, never to be outdone by his longtime Democratic rival, Donald Trump is also currently pushing ahead with his own library in Miami. setting up a battle of architectural vanity, legacy and fundraising capacity. But how has the presidential library system evolved over the years? Well, reporter Simon Tierney has been investigating. He joins me now. Simon, good morning.
What is the significance of the Obama Presidential Library opening?
Good morning, Pat. Can you set the scene for the Obama Library first?
Yeah, sure. So this is the first presidential library since George W. Bush in 2013. So it's a significant amount of time since we've had one. It sprawls across 19 acres on Chicago's South Side, where Obama cut his teeth as a community organizer back in the 90s. It's got 35,000 artifacts from their time in office. Now, this is everything from... diplomatic gifts to a life-size recreation of the Oval Office, a digital library of his papers, of course, and what will likely be a rather partisan interpretation of his various achievements in office.
Have you looked at it, by the way? It's a bit brutalist, isn't it?
How is Donald Trump's library in Miami shaping up?
It is brutalist. It's very contemporary in its style. And we will get to some divergent views on that. But it's really the playbook of what happens that there is always going to be controversy about what it looks like. When did it all start? So Franklin Roosevelt kicked off this tradition back in the 40s and the idea was very much a library storing records, whereas this new iteration is much more of a museum and even a civic amenity is the way the Obamas have conceived it. But still the narrative function is strong. It's about telling the story of Obama for posterity.
In other words, writing your history now.
Exactly. You get the first version of it.
Now, you mentioned Roosevelt there. Why did the tradition begin with him?
Yeah, so FDR recognised the need, I suppose, to organise not just his legacy, but also his papers. Like, until the concept of a presidential library came along, the fate of a president's papers was haphazard, to say the least. Now, FDR's library was dedicated in 1941.
Music At Hyde Park, New York, is one of the most historic libraries in the world. It's the Roosevelt Library, and it costs $350,000 to build and equip. The president's room is the center of a number of apartments that house his private papers, state records, parchments, and books. A large effigy, the president, in a sphinx-like setting, is a dominating feature. Today, a crowd gathers for the dedication ceremony. The priceless records of 30 years, 30 strenuous and sometimes very stormy years, are to be formally handed over by the man who made them.
And this latest addition to the archives of America is dedicated at a moment when government of the people by themselves is being attacked everywhere. It is therefore proof, if any proof is needed, that our confidence in the future of democracy has not diminished in this nation and will not diminish.
Little did he know. Anyway, that was Franklin D. Roosevelt at the opening of his presidential library. But coming back to the present, the Obama library, as you were mentioning earlier, is not without some controversy, I understand.
No, not at all, Pat. Because the plans for Trump's library in Miami have accelerated in recent months, I don't know if you've seen the pictures, an inevitable sort of face-off has developed between Obama's library and Trump's. Whose is more expensive? Which is relying on public money? Which one is more beautiful? Yada, yada, yada. A real point of contention, I think, is that taxpayers have actually spent at least $123 million on the infrastructure costs around Obama's library. It's such a large site, they've had to reroute roads and everything like that. And the other issue is one that the right loves to hammer Obama with.
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