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Preview The Weekly Standard, Volume 23, Number 20, January 29, 2018

S OIDSBURBWELL OPIE SU R CALD H HE IN TRISTOP H C JANUARY 29, 2018 • $5.99 ONE DOWN Trump’s first year and the year ahead DAVID BYLER ETHAN EPSTEIN YUVAL LEVIN MICHAEL WARREN ADAM J. WHITE THE EDITORS WEEKLYSTANDARD.COM Contents January 29, 2018 • Volume 23, Number 20 2 The Scrapbook Samantha Power’s party, high-cost rail, & more 6 Casual Grant Wishard hears voices 8 Editorial The Good and the Bad 12 Comment Presidential Libraries: A Study in Bloat by philip terzian A Nurturing Minstrel by barton sWaiM Articles 20 16 His Own Worst Enemy by Michael Warren Four lessons from Trump, Year One 18 Giving Respect Where It Is Due by caitrin Keiper What the president doesn’t understand about Haiti 20 Opioids in the Suburbs by christopher caldWell A mass overdose in Fairfax 22 He’s Everywhere, He’s Everywhere by ethan epstein The cultural impact of Trump 24 A Cordial Good Night by Joseph epstein Milton Rosenberg, 1925-2018 22 26 Intersectionality for Dummies by stephen Miller Oppressed for success Features 28 As Goes Trump, So Goes the GOP by david byler Will voters unhappy with the president take it out on the GOP this fall? 32 Trumping the Administrative State by adaM J. White For deregulators, it was a very good year Books & Arts 36 Milton’s Morality by Micah Mattix 32 Fallen man and the fallen stature of ‘Paradise Lost’ 39 War by Other Memes by JaMes KirchicK Falsehoods and feedback loops as social media change armed conflict 40 How Democracies Panic by yuval levin We aren’t verging on autocracy, we’ve just forgotten how to worry 43 A Needless Quarrel by MattheW J. FrancK How an injustice from 1858 became unnecessarily divisive in 2018 45 The Informed Patriot by WilFred M. Mcclay Bruce Cole’s case for the humanities in American life 47 Word-of-Mouth Movies by John podhoretz Audiences talked ‘Jumanji’ and ‘The Greatest Showman’ into box-office hits 43 48 Parody The presidential doctor is in COVER BY GARY LOCKE THE SCRAPBOOK Samantha’s Soft Power Failure The Scrapbook has deep reserva- Scrapbook is hoping for a director’s tions about the Trump era, but cut focused just on this one evening, we’re only human—sometimes we which might be the feel-good movie indulge in a small chortle or two at of the year. the discomfiture his victory caused Okay, that’s probably going over- certain parties. For instance, we took board with the schadenfreude, but way more pleasure than we probably really, anyone who would unironi- should have in Politico’s interview cally describe their party theme with last week with the Obama adminis- the phrase “milk the soft power divi- tration’s U.N. ambassador, Saman- dend” is asking for it. And that’s not tha Power, who recalled all the gory even the worst line of the interview. details of an ill-fated party she hosted Here’s how Power describes the eve- on election night 2016. ning: “Well, I’ve had a lot of bad ideas Power invited the U.N.’s 37 female in my life, but none as immortalized ambassadors—and special guest Glo- as this one.” ria Steinem—to her penthouse to glory We beg to differ. Before becoming in the election returns and Hillary U.N. ambassador, Power was famous Clinton’s historic victory. “I thought for an impassioned, Pulitzer-win- what an amazing night for them,” ning book, A Problem From Hell, that she told Politico. “I mean, that’s what excoriated Western governments for America represents to the world, when not doing more to prevent genocide. a glass ceiling is shattered in our coun- She was perhaps the world’s lead- try, it creates a whole new sense of pos- ing advocate of humanitarian inter- sibility for people everywhere.” vention. Then she became Barack Heading into the evening, Power’s power dividend of this moment, and Obama’s U.N. ambassador and held concern was not that Hillary Clinton instead, and HBO was there [filming], her tongue while her boss blandly wouldn’t win the election, but that she I guess unfortunately or fortunately, allowed Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to would win it, to borrow a phrase from to capture it all . . . it slowly dawn[ed] use chemical weapons on children the president, early and bigly. “As the on us that not only was this going to and ultimately slaughter nearly half host, I was kind of hoping it wouldn’t be much closer than anybody antici- a million people. be quite the blowout that it was antici- pated, but that it was not going to She has indeed had a lot of bad pated to be, because I wanted to make end well.” ideas that will be remembered. But we sure that people had a chance to inter- Footage from the party will be doubt that her failure to ensure party act with Gloria Steinem,” she said, included in a larger HBO docu- guests got enough face time with Glo- adding, “I wanted to milk the soft mentary, The Final Year, but The ria Steinem even makes the list. ♦ Invincible Ignorance headline: “Prison Population Grow- Journal dubbed this blinkered liberal- ing Although Crime Rate Drops.” The ism “The Butterfield Effect.” In 1997, The Scrapbook saw a funny lead: “The nation’s prison population A January 7, 2018, headline doesn’t New York Times headline: “Crime grew by 5.2 percent in 1997, accord- rival the earlier ones for sheer delight, Keeps on Falling, but Prisons Keep ing to the Justice Department, even but it’s in the same category: “Crime on Filling.” Astonishingly, we noted, though crime has been declining for Is Falling, But Police Levels Remain “the possibility that longer sentences six straight years, suggesting that the Robust.” Crime is down in the 30 larg- and less parole might be playing a large imprisonment boom has developed a est cities in the United States, the part in that falling crime rate” had built-in growth dynamic independent reporter, Jose Del Real, explains, “but failed to penetrate the furrowed brows of the crime rate, experts say.” fewer crimes have not resulted in fewer at the Times. It was the same reporter, Fox But- police officers on the streets.” To his We mocked them and were appar- terfield, displaying the same blind credit, Del Real doesn’t pretend not K C ently ignored, because a year later spot: a failure to entertain the possi- to notice the obvious counter-argu- O ST they were back with more of the same, bility that crime had fallen precisely ment—namely, that robust police num- BIG a story that captured the essence of because criminals had been put in bers may have precipitated the drop RE: U modern liberal thought on crime. The jail. James Taranto of the Wall Street in crime. But he dismisses the idea, FIG 2 / The Weekly STandard January 29, 2018 noting that “the relationship between the number of officers and lawful behavior is not clear-cut.” We’re not sure how a question with this many variables could ever be “clear-cut” (different cities with dif- ferent problems, different policies at different police departments led by different people with different skills). But in one sense, at least, the rela- tionship would seem as clear-cut as it’s possible to be: Police levels rose, crime fell. Perhaps, though, we lack nuance. Or perhaps, as conservatives, we’re too ready to associate more cops with more order. Anyhow, the Times explains the problem with statistical conundrums like this: In Chicago, notorious for violence and shootings in recent years, there are 44 officers for each 10,000 residents. That is almost the same ratio as New York. But though crime in Chicago declined in 2017, according to a year-end analy- sis by the Brennan Center for Justice, the crime rate there was still far higher than in New York, which recorded its lowest crime rate since the 1950s. Phil- adelphia also has about the same num- ber of officers per capita; homicides there surpassed 300 for the first time in five years, but violent crime in general went down in 2017. The problem with this sort of analy- sis, it seems to us, is that it’s too nar- rowly focused on a single year, 2017. A more thorough interpretation would consider a much larger time span. This reflection led us back to a ter- of groundbreaking work on crime average of 24 percent. In the lower- rific cover story in The Weekly STan- policy. In that essay he contended that policing, higher-punishment group, dard from February 23, 2009, by the just as a large surge of ground forces the average crime drop was only 9 per- cent. Higher-policing, lower-punish- late William Stuntz: “Law and Dis- had quelled the insurgency in Iraq, so ment states outperformed their more order: The case for a police surge.” increases in police numbers tend over punitive, less well-policed neighbors Stuntz was a professor at Harvard time to decrease violent crime. in all parts of the country. The city Law School and the author that saw the nation’s largest crime Between 1989 and 1999, the number drop—New York—increased the size Book of urban police officers per unit of of its police force the most. The state ‘EM, population rose 17 percent. Arrests that includes that city increased its fell by a little more than 20 percent; Danno! prison population the least. arrests of black suspects fell by one- third. Crime fell too, and it fell most in We’re told by a former colleague of the jurisdictions that hired the most Stuntz (he died in 2011) that his 2009 cops. In 41 pairs of neighboring states, essay “was extraordinarily contro- one jurisdiction increased its policing versial in law school circles. Defend- rate more and its punishment rate less ing anything about Iraq was almost than its neighbor during the 1990s. In the higher-policing, lower-punish- unheard of. Bill took a lot of heat, and ment states, violent crime fell by an he turned out to be right.” ♦ January 29, 2018 The Weekly STandard / 3 low-wage employees’ earnings by an average of $125 per month in 2016” because employers had to slash work- ers’ hours to afford the new ordi- nance. It led to a loss of an estimated www.weeklystandard.com 10,000 jobs. Stephen F. Hayes, Editor in Chief Next time you hear a politician Richard Starr, Editor prattle on about helping the poor by Fred Barnes, Robert Messenger, Executive Editors Peter J. Boyer, Christopher Caldwell, raising the minimum wage, consider Andrew Ferguson, Matt Labash, the effects on sandwiches and other National Correspondents Jonathan V. Last, Digital Editor cheap food. If we can’t get govern- Barton Swaim, Opinion Editor ment off our backs, let’s at least keep Adam Keiper, Books & Arts Editor Minimum Wage Hits them out of our fast-food joints. ♦ Kelly EJarince F Teoltrerann, cMe,a rDke pHuetym Minagnawgainyg, Editor John McCormack, Tony Mecia, Maximum Sandwich Philip Terzian, Michael Warren, Senior Writers Least Surprising David Byler, Jenna Lifhits, Alice B. Lloyd, As far as lunch deals go, Subway’s Staff Writers Headline of the Year Rachael Larimore, Online Managing Editor $5 footlong sandwich has been Hannah Yoest, Social Media Editor Ethan Epstein, Associate Editor a hit with consumers. The company Readers may remember Charlotte Chris Deaton, Jim Swift, Deputy Online Editors sees the promotion as a way to revive Allen’s September 12, 2016, cover Priscilla M. Jensen, Assistant Editor Andrew Egger, Haley Byrd, Reporters interest in its restaurants, which story on high-speed rail in the Golden Holmes Lybrand, Fact Checker Adam Rubenstein, Grant Wishard, have struggled to attract diners in State: “Bullet Train to Nowhere: The Editorial Assistants the last few years. In January, Sub- Ultimate California Boondoggle.” Philip Chalk, Design Director Barbara Kyttle, Design Assistant way brought the deal back for a lim- Allen memorably visited “a 1,600-foot Contributing Editors Claudia Anderson, Max Boot, Joseph Bottum, ited time and now charges $4.99 for viaduct spanning the Fresno River Tucker Carlson, Matthew Continetti, Jay Cost, 12 inches of five sandwiches: black on the rural outskirts of Madera,” Terry Eastland, Noemie Emery, Joseph Epstein, David Frum, David Gelernter, Reuel Marc Gerecht, forest ham, meatball marinara, spicy which was just about the only con- Michael Goldfarb, Daniel Halper, Mary Katharine Ham, Brit Hume, Thomas Joscelyn, Italian, cold cut combo, and some- struction then taking place on a sys- Frederick W. Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, thing called “Veggie Delite.” tem projected to one day stretch over Yuval Levin, Tod Lindberg, Micah Mattix, Victorino Matus, P. J. O’Rourke, Now, though, the Subway $5 foot- 500 miles. “The bullet-train project John Podhoretz, Irwin M. Stelzer long is under siege in cities that have has moved more slowly—far more William Kristol, Editor at Large imposed high minimum wages. It is slowly—than its boosters antici- MediaDC becoming a valuable lesson in eco- pated,” she reported. Ryan McKibben, Chairman Stephen R. Sparks, President & Chief Operating Officer nomics that some cities are refusing So we were, shall we say, unsur- Jennifer Yingling, Audience Development Officer to learn. prised at the January 16 headline in Kathy Schaffhauser, Chief Financial Officer David Lindsey, Chief Digital Officer Seattle’s minimum wage rose to the Los Angeles Times: “California bul- Alex Rosenwald, Director, Public Relations & Branding Mark Walters, Chief Revenue Officer $15 an hour on January 1, the same let train cost surges by $2.8 billion: Nicholas H. B. Swezey, Vice President, Advertising day the city launched a punitive new ‘Worst-case scenario has happened.’ ” T. Barry Davis, Senior Director, Advertising Jason Roberts, Digital Director, Advertising tax on soda. Yet somehow city leaders Reporter Ralph Vartabedian, who Paul Plawin, National Account Director Andrew Kaumeier, Advertising Operations Manager believe that none of these mandates is has done yeoman work on this beat Brooke McIngvale, Manager, Marketing Services causing any harm to businesses and for years, provided the details: Advertising inquiries: 202-293-4900 Subscriptions: 1-800-274-7293 their deal-seeking customers. 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Send letters to the editor to The Weekly Standard, 1152 15th to radio station KTTH-AM. largest infrastructure project with Street, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005-4617. For a copy of The It’s not just sandwich deals that are the existing funding sources. WCuesetkolmy Sert aSnedravircde P, rTivhaec Wy Peoelkiclyy ,S vtiasnitd wawrdw, .w11e5ek2l y1s5tathn dSatr.d, .NcoWm, Sour itwer i2te0 t0o, being sliced: A June 2017 study by Washington, DC 20005. Copyright 2018, Clarity Media Group. All rights reserved. No material in The Weekly University of Washington public pol- If you didn’t see this coming, The Standard may be reprinted without icy professors found that earlier hikes Scrapbook has a railway viaduct it pTheerm Wiseseioknly oSft atnhdea rdc oipsy raig rhetg iostwenreedr. in Seattle’s minimum wage “lowered would like to sell you. ♦ trademark of Clarity Media Group. 4 / The Weekly STandard January 29, 2018 CASUAL The Voice over the Intercom an hour and a half after we were sup- posed to leave. We finally got on the road, but the bus broke down almost immediately. A burning smell wafted through the cabin as the driver T here are many serious and a good night. Take care. Be safe get- turned back toward the bus station. well-justified complaints ting home,” the driver said with all The passengers groaned and cursed against the decrepit Wash- the sympathy in the world. “See you climbing off the bus and grumbled ington Metro system, but tomorrow morning and we’ll do it all getting back on after another round of sometimes there’s a happy surprise. over again.” A few passengers smiled duct tape was applied to whatever time There I was one typical morn- and turned to one another with a “yeah, bomb was ticking under the hood. ing last fall in full grim-commuter that’s life” kind of look. I put my book Our first driver was replaced by mode: arms crossed, legs spread to under my fleece and made a run for it another, clearly more veteran captain. claim maximum personal territory. through the rain, feeling unusually fra- Sensing insurrection, he climbed And then I heard this voice, sunny ternal toward my fellow passengers. aboard, put a foot up on the nearest seat, and bright, over the intercom: crossed his arms, leaned on his “Goooood morning, ladies and knee, and looked expectantly at gentlemen,” the driver said. the passengers. The bus quieted. “Pick up your newspapers and The griping lowered to a murmur. hold onto your morning coffee. We were all in middle school We’re going [dramatic pause] again, hushed by a tough-looking downtown!” The doors closed, substitute teacher from the south and we were off. It was exciting. side. “ladieS and genTlemen,” he The effect was visible. People sat barked. “i underSTand you’ve up a little straighter. I smiled been delayed. i juST WanT y’all and took my knee out of my To knoW—i ain’T goT noThing To seatmate’s ribcage. do WiTh ThaT. if you Would like Over the past several years To comPlain i can find you Some- Metro has been slowly replacing one elSe in charge.” I pulled out their most unreliable trains with my notepad, knowing this Gettys- new 7000-series rail cars. They burg Address wouldn’t last long. are spacious, generally clean, and “BuT,” he continued with a shrug, don’t leave you with the impres- “ThiS iS greyhound: It Is what It sion that you’ve traveled stuffed Is.” Nobody said a word. We in the sweaty armpit of a three- arrived in New Orleans without piece mustard-colored nylon suit, No doubt recognizable to millions incident. Law and order ruled the day. unwashed since the ’70s. The new cars of Americans from their trips to the Miller is right, consistency is are nice, but I do have one reservation. nation’s capital, the original voice important. That’s why the robots Instead of the driver telling you what of the Metro (“step back to allow the will soon put all of us out of work. the next stop is, most of the voice work doors to close”), local resident Randi But machines cannot and never will is done by computer, a new Siri-like Miller, has always said she would be able to empathize or feel excite- character, professional and consistent love to make more recordings for the ment. As I write this, a robot vacuum to a fault. subway system. “Consistency’s very cleaner is feeling its way around my In the new cars you rarely hear important,” she told the Washing- feet. Even if it were programmed to from the driver. Hidden behind tinted ton Post. “You want to have one voice pause at random intervals and say glass at the front of the train, he or she for everything.” I’m inclined to agree. “Boy, am I tired” or “Wow, more dog might as well not be there at all. One Metro could be improved in a million hair!” it couldn’t make me care. And late night, we pulled into the last sta- ways. But there’s a lot to be said for a a robot voice will never relieve the tion on the line in the pouring rain. calm, clear, commanding voice over drudgery of commuting or lighten The car was cold and empty except for the intercom. the burdens of the passengers. So a few passengers huddled under their This past summer I took a bus ride please, Metro, keep the intercoms coats, some of them waking up from from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. open, for the sake of my own amuse- ON naps snatched leaning against the Greyhound was doing its absolute ment and less rioting. BOLT smudged windows. And then we heard best impression of a port-a-John on ORI this voice, quiet and concerned.“Have wheels. Our driver didn’t show up for Grant Wishard J 6 / The Weekly STandard January 29, 2018 EDITORIAL The Good and the Bad Now that we have one full year of the Trump But for those conservatives who couldn’t back Trump or presidency in the history books, isn’t it time for Clinton, questions about Trump’s ideology were secondary. Trump’s conservative critics to acknowledge his For them—for us—it was Trump’s character and tempera- election was worth it? ment that made him unfit for office. And the harm done in This is a question posed with increasing frequency by the a single year by President Trump—to the country, the cul- president’s supporters. And they have a point: The accom- ture, the Republican party, and American conservatism— plishments of the last year have been reasonably impressive. must also be acknowledged. Trump placed a stalwart conservative on the The president of the United States endorsed a credibly Supreme Court. accused child molester to serve in the U.S. Senate. Trump authorized the U.S. military The president fired the FBI direc- to prosecute a serious war on ISIS and, Looking back on tor because he was unhappy with an along with our coalition partners, has suc- investigation into his campaign and these follies, no ceeded in dramatically reducing the land transition team. controlled by the genocidal Islamist ter- conservative can in The president sent antagonistic rorist organization. good faith maintain tweets about nuclear-armed North The Trump administration has over- Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, at one that Trump hasn’t turned many Obama-era regulations. point boasting that his nuclear button Getting the federal government out of the done damage to the is “bigger” than Kim’s. way has enhanced the freedom of Ameri- The president revealed highly presidency and our cans and contributed to economic growth classified information to top Rus- and a stock market boom. politics. Was it worth sian diplomats during an Oval Trump signed a tax-reform pack- it? Does the good Office meeting. age that cut taxes for some 80 percent of The president insulted American outweigh the bad? American households. Final judgment allies as “s—hole countries”—with about the tax bill, which also repealed the clear implication that the U.S. cit- Obamacare’s individual mandate and opened up drilling izens who have immigrated from those countries have made in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is best reserved our country worse. for when we have a sense of how much it spurs growth The president, shortly after a neo-Nazi drove his car and increases the federal deficit. On balance, though, it into and killed a peaceful protester in Charlottesville, issued brought welcome changes to the corporate and individual a statement condemning the “hatred, bigotry and violence tax rates. on many sides.” The violence of “antifa” is indeed condem- Trump’s CIA director, Mike Pompeo, released 470,000 nable, but antifa had not committed an act of terrorism that documents captured in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s com- day, and the president could never bring himself to force- pound, giving the public access to information the Obama fully single out the white supremacists who marched on administration went to great lengths to keep buried. Charlottesville. The president followed up that performance Trump has reversed Barack Obama’s naïve and danger- with a press conference in which he insisted there had been ous policy of helping the terror-sponsoring regime in Iran. some “very fine people” participating in a torchlit neo-Nazi Yet similar ends would have come from almost any rally where marchers chanted “Jews will not replace us.” Republican president given a Republican Congress. The fact The president is a serial liar—making false claims about that almost all of Trump’s accomplishments could have been matters large and small, consequential and trivial. Even by expected from a generic Republican should disappoint true- the low standards with which we’ve come to judge honesty believing populists and belie Trump’s boast, “I alone can in politicians, Trump is a singularly dishonest figure. fix it.” But the policy achievements of the last year ought to The president failed to fulfill his promises to repeal and be acknowledged and applauded by his conservative critics. replace Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood. He Most of the conservatives who couldn’t bring themselves to shares that blame with congressional Republicans, to be vote for Trump would have gladly crawled over broken glass sure. But in his public comments and private discussions to vote for any other Republican in a race against Clinton. with lawmakers, Trump revealed both policy ignorance and 8 / The Weekly STandard January 29, 2018 lack of discipline, at one point complaining about a “mean” policy achievements of the first year against the presi- bill from House Republicans, though he himself had previ- dent’s erratic and immoral behavior. The latter will very ously expressed support for it. likely diminish the former in the long run. With a boom- The president is often unfamiliar with his own policy ing stock market, the president’s job approval rating hov- positions—as when he embraced a “clean” DACA renewal ers in the high 30s, young people are fleeing the party, at a bipartisan White House meeting in early January or and a Democratic wave in the midterm elections becomes when he tweeted skepticism about a crucial intelligence likelier every week. program that his White House had formally endorsed less Whether or not the GOP gets demolished in 2018, than 12 hours earlier. (Trump had apparently been watch- however, conservatives must not abandon their belief ing Fox & Friends when Judge Andrew Napolitano criti- that this nation’s political leaders should conduct them- cized the program.) selves with moral probity and public decency. It was Any list compiling the worst moments of the cha- right to defend that belief in the 1990s, and it’s right to otic first year of the Trump presidency will necessarily do so now. be incomplete; the sheer volume of the crazy statements One of the worst things about the Trump personality and actions means that scandals that would have over- cult is that its adherents do not merely demand that he be whelmed previous presidencies barely registered. Reports credited for his achievements—they demand that his defects last week that the president had committed adultery with of character and temperament be denied or defended. This is a pornographic actress months after his youngest son was not a propensity conservatives should adopt, for any reason. born—reports strengthened by the release of an inter- There are patriotic Americans serving in the admin- view with the actress and the revelation of alleged “hush istration out of a sense of moral duty and civic obligation. money” paid to her on the eve of the 2016 election—were There are conservatives in Congress who hold their tongues relegated to the fourth or fifth story of the day on the rather than risk a public fight with the president, and work news programs that cover politics. quietly to advance conservative policies and principles. But Looking back on these follies and outrages, no conser- if American conservatism is to survive and thrive it won’t vative can in good faith maintain that Trump hasn’t done be because its proponents keep quiet. It will be because the damage to the presidency, our politics, and conservatism. American people do not learn to equate conservatism with Was it worth it? Does the good outweigh the bad? the worst excesses of Donald Trump. The question isn’t answered by simply measuring the —The Editors 10 / The Weekly STandard January 29, 2018 COMMENT PHILIP TERZIAN Presidential Libraries: A Study in Bloat I was surprised last week to learn martyred John F. Kennedy ran into and since passage of the 1955 Presi- that plans for the Barack Obama NIMBY complaints in Cambridge, dential Libraries Act, the National Presidential Center in Chicago Mass., and had to be exiled from its Archives has administered the library have run into local opposition. planned location on the Harvard cam- and all its successors. (In the 1950s Her- The proposed library/museum/ pus to a distant peninsula on Boston bert Hoover, Roosevelt’s only living think-tank design, a sprawling cam- Harbor. One-term presidents now predecessor, commissioned a similarly pus in Jackson Park featuring a giant generate more papers and objects than low-key establishment at his birthplace monolith and mammoth in rural Iowa.) parking garage, has been crit- From the standpoint of history, of One-term presidents icized by South Side activ- course, this is as it should be. Offi- ists for intruding on the park now generate more cial government documents should space and overwhelming the never have been regarded as private papers and objects neighborhood. The center is property; library staffs and resources a joint project of the Obama than a century are a blessing to scholars and stu- Foundation and the nearby dents; the exhibits, and occasional University of Chicago, where of their historic homes and birthplaces, are magnets Obama once taught. Now, to visitors. In a nation routinely predecessors, and more than a hundred faculty accused of ignoring its past, presi- members there have signed many presidential dential libraries have much to teach a petition complaining that us, good and bad. libraries resemble the complex “will soon They are significant for other rea- become an object-lesson in Egyptian pyramids. sons as well. We’re a secular society, the mistakes of the past,” and and in the absence of saints’ relics and that among other things, the places of religious pilgrimage, the parking garage is “socially regressive” a century of their historic predeces- presidential libraries, with their per- since it “privileges cars and those who sors, and in size and volume, many sonal artifacts, historic documents, can afford them.” of the structures themselves resemble and approved mythology, combine On the one hand, I was surprised by the Egyptian pyramids. good citizenship with cultural needs. this because Barack Obama is a local Presidential libraries, by the way, They are also uniquely American. hero in Chicago, and if any president are a modern invention. Until the With the possible exceptions of Win- enjoys sacred status in the academy, middle of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ston Churchill and Benjamin Disraeli, it is he. No fewer than four institu- tenure, papers (both official and unof- there are no comparable reposit ories tions of higher learning had bid for ficial) tended to accompany their for the private papers and furnish- the privilege of hosting the Obama presidents into retirement—and in ings of the British prime ministers. center. By contrast, in the 1970s, when some cases oblivion—or, if the presi- For that matter, you can stare in won- poor Richard Nixon sought a home dent thought of it, to make their way der at JFK’s rocking chair or FDR’s for his archives, the faculty at his alma to the Library of Congress. Theodore cluttered desktop, but in Moscow, the mater (Duke Law School) made it Roosevelt, class of 1880, left his papers main remnant of Lenin on public dis- clear that the Nixon papers were not to Harvard. play is his corpse. welcome there. In 1939-40, TR’s distant cousin FDR The libraries are also redolent On the other hand, I should not designed and built a comparatively of their namesakes and times. The have been surprised. Along with the modest, two-story library-archives on design of Roosevelt’s library has a imperial presidency itself, the growth the grounds of his family’s estate in the kind of genteel amateurism about it; and grandeur of presidential libraries/ Hudson Valley, all of which was deeded Dwight D. Eisenhower’s complex is museums over the decades has been to the federal government upon his a testament to heroism and humil- relentless, and not without contro- death. The National Park Service oper- ity. Nixon’s library was bogged down versy. Even the archival shrine to the ates the Roosevelt house and grounds, for years in legal controversy over 12 / The Weekly STandard January 29, 2018 Presidential libraries, left to right, descending: Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama (as proposed) the status of his White House tapes Johnson) are enshrined in forbidding containing exhibition and meeting and so was initially built and admin- bunkers, looming ominously over bare spaces. Obama’s papers have all been istered with private funds. Jimmy terrain; the Nixon library, by contrast, digitized for online access; the origi- Carter, involuntarily retired from the is considerably more accessible. Recent nal documents will remain in a fed- White House at 56, began a new tra- structures, including the Ford, Rea- eral warehouse. dition by combining his presidential gan, Clinton, and Bush I and II librar- In that sense, Obama’s center (as library with a separate institution ies have sought, with varying degrees currently constituted) is the culmina- (the Carter Center) intended to pro- of success, to integrate themselves into tion of dubious trends in the concept: long his public career. the landscape. a monument not to history or scholar- And as Obama is discovering, By contrast, the planned Obama ship, but to Barack Obama, destined design and architecture are part of the Presidential Center is a Brutalist to swamp its surroundings. Perhaps legacy. The Eisenhower and Truman throwback: a 20-acre concrete theme that’s what the faculty petition meant libraries have an austere neoclassical park (and athletic center!) in a low- by “an object-lesson in mistakes of the appearance. Two of the three presidents rise neighborhood, anchored by a past.” Community organizers have of the high Brutalist era (Kennedy, tall, misshapen, high-rise cube-tower their work cut out for them. ♦ January 29, 2018 The Weekly STandard / 13

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