Anyone who served in the Administration of President Ronald Reagan appreciates that the "Gipper" was unique among American presidents. He believed in a philosophy of limited government that he constructed from his own experience, research, and writings, and adhered to those principles. His Administration as the 40th President of the United States was not perfect, but its hallmarks are the invasion of Grenada, tax reforms, advocacy of ballistic missile defense, and an unremitting anti-communism that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Those accomplishments rank him among the top five American presidents of the 20th century, of which Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan are counted in that select group.
Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ and Ronald Reagan stand out because they held to principles that shaped their terms in office, and American history. These were world historic personalities enlivened by ideas, driven by ambition and motivated by competitive instincts that hated to lose.
That being the case, why are their presidential libraries so undistinguished? Look at the Web sites and listing of events at FDR, LBJ, and Ronald Reagan's libraries, and you see just plain vanilla, pedestrian, notices that lack just about everything that intelligent Americans would desire of presidential libraries.
Events at these monuments to their presidencies are less interesting than most local public libraries. Digital Internet technologies are not utilized to enable access to audio recordings, and documents, by the general public. Today, when many large banks offer clients access to scanned copies of checks customers have written, at our presidential libraries we get catalogs of documents located in bins.
On the whole, these libraries have a pedestrian quality that don't attract much more than the curious, and professional researchers of presidential papers.
When these presidents were in power, the world lived on every word they uttered. Upon leaving power, there seems not to be any intellectual force delivering, and interpreting, their ideas for a broader public. Each presidential library has the earmarks of a Mausoleum or tomb rather than an educational institution supported by the American people.
As presently constituted, presidential libraries are a form of welfare that give former presidents something to do that is connected to their considerable self-esteem-while they're alive. After they're dead, nobody in these personal monuments seems to have a clue about why they exist. That should change.
As America moves into an imperial phase and the Imperial Presidency is likely to gain traction and dominate other branches of the federal government, perhaps it’s time to think about setting up a different system by which all presidential papers are kept in one repository.
I envision taking a big chunk of federal land, and preserving it for the libraries of every future president of the United States. Located in the wilderness, adjacent to an abandoned Air Force base, a new community, windswept and freezing in winter, hot as hell in summer, will grow into a major metropolis surrounded, much like Disneyland in Anaheim, California, by every conceivable fast food restaurant, motel chain, and shopping outlets for every conceivable discounted brand.
Of course, if West Virginia's Senator Byrd so desires, he might have this institution located next to the FBI finger-printing facility he kidnapped for the greater good of his constituents.
Administered by persons who appreciate ideas and forces that shape American government, "The Presidential Libraries National Park" will become the greatest tourist attraction in the entire United States. No need to corral fat cat donors who preen themselves in the presidential limelight, just tax the American people for the privilege of containing all presidential papers at one site.
That, surely, is what all future presidents of the United States would want us to do, right?
