Stuffed 
Opponents of the proposed Oyster Bay Long Island Theodore Roosevelt museum call the trim, new look museum proposal a mess still. TheSaveFiremansFieldians look at the numbers, and say cutting the Roosevelt’s size a non-response to the real questions.
“The fact of the new “scaled back” version of the TR Museum does nothing to change the fact that the Firemen’s Field site in Oyster Bay is approached by only two lane roads from a perimeter area of 5 miles. How will the little Hamlet of Oyster Bay be able to handle all that traffic. After first indicating the museum would attract 500,000 visitors a year, the Theodore Roosevelt Association has now scaled back that projection to just 100,000 visitors a year, in a vein attempt to make the proposal more attractive to the hamlet. Even 100,000 visitors would swamp our little community, but the fact is that the original figure of 500,000 – at LEAST that – is far more accurate.”
And the Field Savers aren’t standing still. They’ve invaded the myspace, with the stirring cry,
“ Groups and individuals with parking concerns should join with us to defend the field.”
Circling the Wagons? 
As a great man once said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are,“i.e., try and settle for what you can get.
In that spirit, the proposed Theodore Roosevelt now proposes to scale back, trying to disarm critics focused on it’s size and location. A proposed Oyster Bay Long Island site has attracted opponents, and in the new scheme as much as 30% of the proposed 100,000 square foot structure would be hived off to put elsewhere.
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.”
Church Chat 
Confident statements by Southern Methodist University aside, the proposed Bush Library might yet sink.
SMU Perkins School of Theology assistant professor of church history Valerie A. Karras has a detailed run through of potential barriers to the Bush Library in the SMU Daily Campus. She says the University can’t take action without Methodist Church approval, that the proposed Bush Institute would violate SMU’s charter, and might kill it’s tax exempt status.
Karras says according to SMU’s Articles of Incorporation…
“campus property can be sold or leased only “for religious or educational purposes [or for student housing].” Given the explicitly partisan and ideological nature of the proposed Bush institute, this provision raises two huge issues: (1) the tax-exempt status of the university, and, underlying this issue, (2) the inconsistency of the proposed institute with legitimately educational purposes. These issues arise because, according to Marvin Bush and Don Evans in their cover letter to the Bush Library committee’s call for proposals, part of the mission of the proposed Bush institute is to be to “further the domestic and international goals of the Bush Administration.”
And she says we’ve seen this film before.
“The Bush Library committee’s proposal is not the first time that politics has tried to piggyback on academia. In fact, very similar proposals were made to Harvard and Stanford for independent, ideological institutes to accompany presidential libraries honoring Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, respectively. Both universities categorically rejected these proposals. Will SMU’s and the SCJ’s commitment to their own legal documents and binding internal rules and, most importantly, to SMU’s academic integrity really be less than that of Harvard and Stanford?”
Stanford’s Field of Reagan Dreams 
Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here 
A new report on burial plans for Harry Truman daughter Margaret Truman Daniel raises a sub question to a larger question: if Presidents insist on pharaohic entombment in their Presidential Libraries, do we have to put up with their relatives as well? Margaret’s ashes are to be buried at the Truman Library along with her late husband’s.
Space is already set aside for Betty Ford 
and the Bush’s plans appear well advanced. 
Who gets the twins?
