Andrew Weaver: More questions about SMU's deal for the Bush library
In her final column before her untimely death, Molly Ivins wrote:"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders." Dr. Benjamin Johnson, a history professor at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, where President Bush is proposing to build his $500 million library and neoconservative institute (DeFrank, 2006; Berkowitz, 2007), recently attended the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians. Several colleagues there reported that Karl Rove, Bush's chief political strategist, has been traveling around the country examining research facilities, discussing how to select Bush Institute fellows, and meeting with library directors (Johnson, 2007a). According to Dr. Johnson, one well-respected colleague said,"Rove seems to know exactly what the square footage is of the building that will be at SMU and where it will be located on campus." Rove also expressed displeasure that some SMU faculty and United Methodist bishops were protesting the proposed partisan institute (Korosec, 2007; Silva, 2007) over which Bush and company will have total control (Johnson, 2007b). This hands-on involvement of a top-level White House operative like Rove demonstrates the importance of the proposed library and think tank at SMU to Bush insiders.
Convincing the United Methodist Church to stain its good name and a major university to give away its academic respectability by linking itself with a president that much of the world views as an authoritarian bully who has authorized and advocated for torture and international kidnapping is one nifty trick Bush is the most unpopular and isolated president since Richard Nixon. Inside his bubble, the President is being told by the Secretary of State (Rice, 2004) that he is another Winston Churchill or Harry Truman -- unpopular now, but he will be vindicated by history for his heroic effort to bring democracy to the Middle East at the point of a gun (even if it requires a total re-write). To re-write history on the scale Bush needs will necessitate the complete control of a disinformation institute, and if it uses the legitimacy of a respected university and the good name of a major Protestant tradition, all the better (imagine the American Enterprise Institute with a giant cross on the front door, and you get the picture).
Importantly, Rove and friends will be able to continue to conceal the most damaging information about this administration in its bubble using Bush's Executive Order 13233, signed into law shortly after 9/11, which insures that the president and his heirs are able to deny access in perpetuity to government records they select (Gillman, 2007). Emily Sheketoff, Executive Director of the American Library Association, observed that the executive order" completely goes against the spirit of the essence of a library" (Gillman, 2007). Steve Aftergood, Director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said"If the Bush folks are going to play games with the records, no self-respecting academic institution should cooperate" (Gillman, 2007). Professor Benjamin Hufbauer at the University of Louisville, a recognized authority on presidential libraries, believes that dictating which papers can be seen at the library reduces it to"just a museum of political propaganda" (Jascik, 2007).
To convince the United Methodist Church (UMC) to stain its good name and a major university to give away its academic respectability by linking itself with a president that much of the world views as an authoritarian bully (Public Diplomacy, 2005; World Public Opinion, 2007) who has authorized and advocated for torture and international kidnapping is one nifty trick (Miles, 2006; Grey, 2006). Such an endeavor required skilled operators and years of stealth planning (Schutze, 2006), which according to SMU President R. Gerald Turner began in 2001, shortly after Bush became president. It required that the SMU administration hide its intentions from its faculty and from church leaders who would understand that a partisan institute lacking standard academic controls, whose mission undoubtedly will include justifying crimes against humanity, would be a bad idea (Weaver and Crawford, 2007). To achieve these goals Bush needs powerful friends in high places and he has them in the SMU Trustees.
Awash in Conflicts of Interest
The SMU Board of Trustees is a study in the appearance of conflicts of interests, at a minimum. It is dominated by individuals who have long-standing relationships with George W. Bush and his family which raises serious questions about their impartiality and therefore how they fulfill their fiduciary duty to the university (Weaver, Sprague, Hicks, and Yeakel, 2007). At least 25 of the 41 trustees (61 percent) have personal, financial, and/or political relationships with Bush, and many have been major fundraisers and contributors to his political campaigns. Furthermore, one of the three United Methodist bishops who serve as SMU trustees, Scott Jones, publicly endorsed the Bush project months before a formal proposal was even presented to the Board (Tooley, 2007).
Twenty-two of the trustees have donated to one or more of the Bush political campaigns and/or the Republican National Committee in support of Bush, including SMU President R. Gerald Turner, Board Chair Carl Sewell, Ruth Altshuler, Michael M. Boone, Bradley W. Brookshire, Donald J. Carty, Jeanne Tower Cox, Gary T. Crum, Linda Pitts Custard, Robert H. Dedman, Jr., Frank M. Dunlevy, Thomas J. Engibous, Alan D. Feld, Gerald J. Ford, James R. Gibbs, Frederick B. Hegi, Jr., Ray L. Hunt, Robert A. Leach, Jeanne L. Phillips, Caren H. Prothro, John C. Tolleson, and Richard Ware (Campaign Finance in American Politics, 2007; Fundrace, 2007; NewsMeat, 2007; Public Citizen's Congress Watch, 2004, 2007)....