Visitor Experience

Local Heroes presidential-library-map.jpg

The case often made for Presidential Libraries is that their localness, their dispersion out of Washington somehow furthers a deeper understanding of those who held the office. David McCullough says keep ’em down on the farm:

“…it is valuable for anyone trying to understand the life of a particular president should come to the place that produced that human being, where his memory is part of the story of that place.”

Or perhaps they just provide local opportunities to further embed ignorance. A recent visitor to the Nixon Library blogged about his experience, and he knows a whole lot of nuthin.

Berlin Wall chunks at Presidential Libraries celebrating administrations further and further from actual events in Germany are an enormous joke, and our lad’s not in on it.

nixon-berlin-wall-2.jpg “One of my favorite displays at the library was a section of the Berlin Wall – very fitting since Nixon played a pretty large role in its ultimate demise.”

nixon-berlin-wall.jpg Not on My Watch

And speaking of tear-downs, the visitor seems to have missed the whole removal/revision of the Watergate exhibit. nixon-watergate-exhibit-under-construction.jpg

The former exhibit space

“There were disappointments at the library, however. Most notably, there wasn’t a section about Watergate at all. As I think back, I wonder if we missed it, but I don’t think we did – we walked through the entire permanent exhibit and I didn’t see anything. Of course, it’s a museum that pays homage to Nixon, so I wasn’t expecting monumental space devoted to the end of his presidency, but to not address it seems very short sighted.”

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