Posted on 01/01/2005 8:51:21 PM PST by HAL9000
The Clinton Presidential Center’s time to shine was in 2004.Now, the former president’s detractors say, it’s the Counter Clinton Library’s turn to cast a shadow.
A group pledging to build the Counter Clinton Library in Little Rock is moving forward with its plans this year for a rebuttal to the Clinton Presidential Center despite fund-raising delays.
More than 40,000 letters will be sent out this month soliciting donations for a private museum criticizing Bill Clinton and his time in office.
Last year the organization behind the Counter Clinton Library, Counterlibe Corp. of Washington D. C., was granted status as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, but the group didn’t build its museum in time for the Nov. 18 dedication of the $165 million presidential center in Little Rock. "I think we jumped the gun," Richard Erickson, a Houston businessman and the founder of the group trying to build the Counter Clinton Library. "We haven’t really been doing any fund-raising work yet."
The group decided to delay major fund raising until after the 2004 presidential election, Erickson said. It now hopes to build a $2 million museum by the end of this year. "We thought it would be best for us to sit on the sidelines," Erickson said. "We kind of figured our message wouldn’t be heard with the election going on."
Plans for the anti-Clinton museum were first announced in 2002, and word spread quickly among conservative Web sites and talk radio.
In April, the group received word that the IRS had granted it tax-exempt status. To keep the exemption, the library must fulfill its plans of building museums about the Clinton presidency in Little Rock and Washington, D. C.
The group will also have to make its tax forms public starting this year.
Even without a museum, the anti-Clinton museum group tried to grab some of the presidential library’s spotlight during the dedication week in November.
A day after the center’s dedication, Erickson sent out a mass e-mail pledging his museum "will be a permanent thorn in the side of the Clintons as they try to hide and distort their anti-American, anti-family, anti-military legacy."
The anti-Clinton museum also was featured on cable station Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, which satirized the exhibits on the museum’s Web site, www.counterclintonlibrary.com. Some of the exhibits are labeled "Deaths" and "Travel Gate Scandal."
Skip Rutherford, head of the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, said he didn’t have any comment about plans by Clinton’s critics. In past interviews, Rutherford has pointed to what he calls the bipartisan nature of presidential libraries. "Clinton haters, they will do almost anything," Rutherford told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2002. "The truthful representation of history is the fact that the 80 million-plus documents of the Clinton years are there. The truthfulness of history is the openness of the documents."
John LeBoutillier, a former New York congressman and a cofounder of group pushing for the Counter Clinton Library, said it was difficult before the library’s opening to compete for donors during the election season.
LeBoutillier said he thinks they will be able to more easily raise support from conservatives who disagree with the library’s portrayal of Clinton’s eight years in office.
On Thursday, former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican, said the Clinton library doesn’t provide an objective account of the impeachment and trial of the former president. An alcove labeled "The Fight for Power" describes Clinton’s impeachment as a partisan attack waged by Republicans. "Hopefully, it [the Counter Clinton Library] can provide that counter perspective to balance things out," said Barr, who served as one of the impeachment managers during Clinton’s trial in the Senate. He has promised to donate some of his impeachment papers to the Counter Clinton Library.
Barr acknowledged that the group’s plans for a counter museum won’t be an objective, unbiased portrait of the 42 nd president. "Good Lord, no. Neither of them are," Barr said. "That’s why I think you need both of them out there."
bttt
CounterCounterCulture approves of the CounterClintonLibrary
Should be no problem. Double-wides are easy to come by in AR...
It's kind of a fun idea and all, and I see where they're coming from, but honestly it seems like self-indulgence to me. We should be looking to the future. Clintonism has already collapsed under its own irrelevance, remember the election.
We got it all, now let's get busy with it!
Arkansas Freepers Ping!
I doubt the documents smuggled out of the National Achieves in Sandy Berger's pants will be among these.
"The truthfulness of history is the openness of the documents."
yeap, that's why so many have asked so often for kerry to sign the form 180 and release all of his military records.
bttt
I don't believe so. IMHO the Clintons and their minions still control the Democrat party. Bill Clinton is very much in the spotlight on many occasions being portrayed as caring and compassionate which enhances the Clinton (Hillary) name for the future. Hillary in her Senate role is also going to the center and is continuously building her case for nomination and election to the presidency.
No, the Clintons are not irrelevant. On the contrary, they are very relevant and in their stealth mode they are very, very dangerous.
Bump!
"...honestly it seems like self-indulgence to me. We should be looking to the future. Clintonism has already collapsed..."
I hope you're right. But there are many of us who believe that as long as clinton walks on the face of this earth, he will find ways to work his despicable mischief, that Hillary Rodham must be stopped, and that the truth of the most corrupt administration in history should be known to all and not spun to all from a double-wide.
Where do I send my donation?
no way....Hillary is still "politically viable" as they like to say. She needs stopping-and this merely one other vehicle toward that end.
Did you hear Bill O'Reilly say he thought bill clinton would make a good sec.general of UN? Scary
Perhaps O'Reilly should just come out and endorse One World Government. That's Clinton's vision for the UN.
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