One of the lasting decisions any president makes before leaving office is choosing where to build his presidential library, often the repository of the administration's long-term legacy for future generations.
Former President Joe Biden and his wife Jill set up, through their foundation, a board this week to plan his library, and they've now announced that Biden's presidential library will be built in one of his "home states" - Delaware.
The Associated Press wrote that an unsurprising group of people are among the planners:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Joe Biden has decided to build his presidential library in Delaware and has tapped a group of former aides, friends and political allies to begin the heavy lift of fundraising and finding a site for the museum and archive.
The Joe and Jill Biden Foundation this past week approved a 13-person governance board that is charged with steering the project. The board includes former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, longtime adviser Steve Ricchetti, prolific Democratic fundraiser Rufus Gifford and others with deep ties to the one-term president and his wife.
The report quietly admitted that this planning for the library by Team Biden is a bit later than most recent presidents - even for a one-term president:
Clinton announced Little Rock, Arkansas, would host his library weeks into his second term. Barack Obama selected Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side as the site for his presidential center before he left office, and George W. Bush selected Southern Methodist University in Dallas before finishing his second term.
One-termer George H.W. Bush announced in 1991, more than a year before he would lose his reelection bid, that he would establish his presidential library at Texas A&M University after he left office.
Biden Aide Reveals $8 Million Contract Details in Congressional Testimony
But AP also included in its ostensibly straight-ahead news story linked above that the board leadership for Biden's library is getting worried... and would you be surprised to learn it's all Donald Trump's fault if those worries come to fruition? (emphasis added)
It also remains to be seen whether corporations and institutional donors that have historically donated to presidential library projects — regardless of the party of the former president — will be more hesitant to contribute, with President Donald Trumpmaligning [sic] Biden on a daily basis and savaging groups he deems left-leaning.
“There’s certainly folks — folks who may have been not thinking about those kinds of issues who are starting to think about them,” Gifford, who was named chairman of the library board, told The Associated Press. “That being said ... we’re not going to create a budget, we’re not going to set a goal for ourselves that we don’t believe we can hit.”
They're simply going to play the victim and not make an effort because Trump might harass potential donors/organizations who would otherwise chip in (or something). Got it.
Anyway, Gifford said they'll aim for somewhere between what the George H.W. Bush library cost (about $43 million) and what former President Obama's foundation has as its goal ($1.6 billion). Once again, there's no real management of the project going on here. It's sort of hanging on a hope and a prayer.
What a mess these liberals and Democrats have left themselves in. These people have only themselves to blame, for insisting that everything was fine with President Biden for years on end, just so they could remain at the levers of power. What are they left with? A pale imitation of a presidency, which they now are tasked with making more of than it actually was.
You can be sure of one thing: whatever people think of Pres. Trump, after his two non-consecutive terms in office have run their course, you won't have the members of the board planning his presidential library bemoaning the fact that they're stuck with nothing to celebrate.
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