Richard Nixon’s Not-Quite-Presidential-Enough Library has long since surrendered to the National Archives. The Nixon’s standalone “we don’t really need his presidential papers” stance collapsed a year ago July when they finally entered the federal government’s warm embrace.
Now they need space for actual documents, you know, like a library! But fear not. As they have so many times, the feds are bailing Nixon out with cash for a new wing!
The Library’s complicated real estate, which a recent visitor says has the National Archives controlling part of the complex and the Nixon Foundation[the leftover of the bad old days] controlling the rest, can only get screwier.
No Walk-ons! 
Steve Clemons provides a Richard Nixon footnote to the nation’s tearful remembrance of the gun-bearer’s Moses, Charlton Heston.
Clemons was handling some of the Nixon funeral logistics, and called Heston to inquire if the great man would visit the sacred ground in Yorba Linda.
“When I asked Mr. Heston if he would like to attend President Nixon’s funeral, his response was: “In what capacity?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, so I repeated the question of whether he’d like to attend and whether he would need a limo/town car pass — and told him that I’d make arrangements for him in the family section.
He said, “I thank you for all that — but will I have a role?”
I said I couldn’t really arrange that. After all, we already had a program that featured Billy Graham, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Henry Kissinger, California Governor Pete Wilson, and others*.
And then he said, “No, I can’t attend. Thank you for the offer.”
”
My Way 
*Here Clemons carries on a Nixon Library tradition. Bill Clinton also spoke at the funeral, but a mid-90s Library photo exhibit on the service managed to exclude any image showing Clinton.
“Surprisingly, there aren’t that many museums or monuments to Stalin anymore.” 
From Carpetblogger comes a report on a visit to Stalin’s hometown and the local museum, the highlight of which from her account appears to be the ticket stamps. 
“Built just after his death in 1953, it’s a typical Soviet-style museum, in which a bunch of uncurated, unanalyzed crap — newspaper articles and photos and random memorabilia — is thrown up on the wall (“unanalyzed” is probably the kindest criticism of this museum. It’s a lot like the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California in that sense).”
Our gal is a serial offender on Uncle Joe, having previously filed on the memorialization of Stalin’s sojourn in Batumi.
“Hottie“? 
*
Local Heroes 
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.
“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.”
Not on My Watch
And speaking of tear-downs, the visitor seems to have missed the whole removal/revision of the Watergate exhibit. 
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.”
“I would love to see a President Huckabee 
…because if our president were named ‘Huckabee,”
how bad could anything really seem?… It’d be as if
the entire country was animated by Hanna Barbera.”
– Stephen Colbert
From the Associated Press comes word that Colbert’s vision is already being realised in Huckabee’s [and Clinton’s] hometown of Hope Arkansas, with a lake named for Huckabee. 
