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You can’t spell "integrity" without SMU!

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The school that hosted the greatest football scandal in NCAA history has topped itself by agreeing to host the George W. Bush library after The Decider shuffles off his presidential coil next year.

The entire project would be intellectually suspect, if for no other reason than Bush’s issuance of Executive Order 13233 in November 2001. That document, which was written up by Noted Friend of the Constitution Alberto Gonzales, essentially suspended the 1978 Presidential Records Act by allowing presidents nearly limitless authority over their papers and by permitting them to designate representatives to act in their name — and continue to withhold the release of what should be public records — after their deaths. As well, the order enables sitting presidents to revise the wishes of their predecessors and block their papers from release. It was an abhorrent order, and Congress has allowed it to stand for well over six years. (The moderately good news is that 13233 will almost certainly be rescinded by the next president; it may not even make it that far if the Senate follows the House’s lead and passes a veto-proof bill restoring the old procedures. Barack Obama is one of three co-signers to the Senate legislation. Jeff Sessions is blocking the bill in committee.)

None of this is news, of course. What’s truly jaw-dropping about SMU’s decision, though, is that the library comes with an affiliated “institution” whose openly partisan mission will be to continue promoting the “ideas and views” of George W. Bush. The institution will be sited on SMU’s campus but will not actually be under the control of the university itself.

While SMU will not release details about its agreement with the president’s foundation until later today, the summary indicates that the university agreed to a structure that would link the institute to the rest of the library and the university, while agreeing to let the foundation control the institute.

The institute will have its own board, which will consist of from three to nine members. SMU said that under its agreement with Bush, the university will be assured one board seat if the board size is up to five, and two board seats if the board is larger.

To a degree, I can understand why the Bush foundation would insist on this sort of thing as a condition for hosting Bush’s collection of books and papers. He’ll leave office next year as one of the worst and least popular presidents in American history, and he’s going to need a permanent public relations infrastructure — an historical analogue to the Office of Special Plans — if he’s going to keep the 20-percenters from ever regarding him (correctly) as a gross incompetent.

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