Opponents of Bush Library Invoke Limbaugh, Coulter

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The New York Sun

Opponents of plans to site President Bush’s presidential library and a related think tank at Southern Methodist University are planning a last-ditch effort to block the move tomorrow at a regional Methodist church conference in Dallas.

Critics are also hoping their campaign against the library and institute gets a boost from a London newspaper’s release over the weekend of a videotaped sting in which a volunteer advance man for the White House, Stephen Payne, seemed to suggest a large donation to the library foundation could help a former president of Kyrgyzstan secure meetings with Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, and other top Bush administration officials.

“That just piled on,” a leader of the campaign to drive away the library, the Reverend Andrew Weaver of Brooklyn, said. “Methodists can tolerate a lot, but they don’t like to be seen as sleazy.”

A regional church conference is expected to take up the issue of the library and related study center at a quadrennial meeting this week of the United Methodist Church’s South Central Jurisdiction, which covers eight states.

Initial opposition focused on perceptions that the library would associate SMU or the church with Mr. Bush’s policies. However, the debate soon turned to the institute and provisions that grant it near-complete autonomy.

“The Bush library thing is a ruse basically to get in a huge neocon think tank on a university campus over which neither the church nor the church’s own university will have any say,” Rev. Weaver said. “It’s about rebranding Bush and they want to rebrand him under the compassionate conservative cross.”

Other presidential libraries affiliated with universities, such as President George H.W. Bush’s center at Texas A&M, have academic programs that operate under university auspices. The proposed think tank at SMU, which has no formal name but is sometimes referred to as the Bush Freedom Institute, would be unusual because it would operate on campus but not under the university’s supervision.

“It jeopardizes the university’s academic reputation. By not having university control of the institute there can be no guarantee that it will conduct itself in accordance with normal academic practice in hiring fellows,” a professor of church history at SMU, Valerie Karras, said. She said she supports the library and museum, which will be operated by the National Archives, but believes the institute should be moved off campus if it won’t be controlled by SMU.

“That’s not a choice on the table,” a political science professor at the school, Matthew Wilson, said in an interview. “Either we’re going to take this in its entirety or we’re going to get nothing.”

Mr. Wilson said some opponents had a fevered imagination about how the think tank would operate. “The fear that some have that the institute is going to want to appoint people like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter as fellows strikes me as bizarre and implausible,” he said. “I would frankly be stunned … though legally there’s nothing to prevent them from doing that.”

Mr. Wilson said he thinks some who want to deliver a “p.r.” blow to Mr. Bush have seized on the arguments about the institute’s autonomy. “For some individuals, this is clearly motivated by policy and personal disdain for President Bush. I think others have serious and principled reservations,” the professor said.

SMU estimates the library and museum would draw an estimated 500,000 visitors to campus annually in the first two years. Mr. Wilson said he expects the institute would enrich the lives of students and faculty by bringing in political leaders and “high-quality researchers.”

After considering three other sites in Texas, the Bush Presidential Library Foundation opted for SMU in 2006. Last year, a Methodist Church council which oversees the university voted, 10-4, to approve leasing the land for the library, museum, and institute. A 99-year lease, which could be extended by up to 249 years, was signed by the university and the foundation in February.

A committee at the regional church conference is expected to debate the library issues today, with about 300 delegates likely to vote tomorrow. “I think there’s a 50-50 chance the delegates will reject it,” Mr. Weaver said.

A spokeswoman for SMU, Patricia LaSalle, said the school was “hopeful” that the delegates will affirm the procedures followed to approve the lease. Asked what would happen if the vote goes the other way, she said, “We’re not going to speculate on that.”

For the record, Mr. Payne, the lobbyist targeted in the sting conducted by the Sunday Times, has said he was entrapped by the paper and made clear there could be no quid pro quo for a donation.


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