[TheSarce]

A friend and I drove this weekend from Austin to DC for the Inauguration and the FR Ball. After some debate (along the lines of did we really want to waste even a single minute of our lives on anything celebrating the Impeached One?), we took a brief detour in Little Rock to get a gander at the monument to his Billness.

It turned out to be the highlight of the whole 1500 mile trip! Whatever you've heard about how bad/ugly/poorly designed it is-- well, it's even worse than that in person!

We were convinced we were approaching it from the rear!--it is ugly, unfinished looking, and somehow much, much smaller than I'd envisioned. The signs refer to it as the Clinton "Presidential Center and Park" (just a Presidential Library would be too pedestrian, apparently). It looks like a houseboat on stilts. There are almost NO unobstructed sightlines to the building, the signage is both cheap looking and hard to read.

The feature that most fascinated me was that the entire building is surrounded by concrete posts just like you see at the 7-11 or pawn shops to keep some yahoo from ramming their pickup through the glass, LOL. It's not that I was surprised to see crash barriers, just that you'd think they'd be disguised/prettied up--decorative stone blocks or something. But these were just your basic concrete pillars/posts with rounded tops, exactly like the ones that keep you from backing into the gas pumps at the PicNPac, LOL! For some reason this tickled the heck out of me, it was just so cheesy.

After all the talk about how much money they were raking in for donations to build this thing, it is just pathetic how underwhelming it was. We were literally driving around it with our jaws dropped in disbelief (no way were we going inside!). I've been to the LBJ, Reagan, and GHWBush41 Libraries, and each manages to evoke a sense of importance and grandeur (yes, even LBJ's--regardless of what I think of him and his presidency, it's a grand library, fitting for a President of the USA.). Clinton's "Center" evokes a sense of hiding from the world (all the obstructed sightlines, it was amazing) and over-reaching and self-important facades with no substance beneath. Just sad--once again Bill himself has no respect for the office of the Presidency, and it's manifested in his LieBury.

I took a bunch of pictures, but don't have time to post them right now. Perhaps in the next couple of days, but probably not til after I return home from DC.

[cajungirl]

Thanks for the colorful report. It is so interesting to me. Did the architect know what he was doing? Did he unconciously design a building that revealed the subject sort of like a painter can do a portrait that reveals the worst things about a person? Did Bill approve the design?

And finally, it cost a fortune to build this little building. Did someone just get gravy from that money and all that came out of it was a tacky building.

Now I have to go see it, I just have to.

[Route101]

Thanks for the visit.....would'nt waste a drop of gas on that trip...your description was what I somehow expected.....

[beckysueb]

I bet the architechs who designed it were Republicans. LOL As for the money he raked in, we didn't really expect him to spend it on a silly library, did we? "Hey guys, just throw it up as cheap as you can. Its good enough for the peasents who adore me and will flock in here."

[TheSpottedOwl]

This is the best description of the liebrary that I've read. The first thing that comes to mind is "money laundering".

Please post the pics when you get a chance.

[shattered]

Thanks for the post. Ping me when you post the pics if it is not too much trouble!

[steve-b]

Clinton's "Center" evokes a sense of hiding from the world (all the obstructed sightlines, it was amazing) and over-reaching and self-important facades with no substance beneath.

In other words, it perfectly evokes its subject.