President Obama changes his mind about a library. Good.
It’s possible to see President Obama as a flip-flopper on this issue: In a New York Times story about how his first term has changed both him and his family, it’s revealed that after initially saying that he wasn’t interested in a presidential library, which he viewed as “a tribute to himself costing hundreds of millions of dollars,” Obama has changed his mind.
Maybe this is a sign of a president who is more conventional, more establishment and possibly more comfortable with the perks and honors of the job. No matter; he has come around to the right way of thinking about this. Regardless of how you view Democrats in general or Obama in particular, his historic standing as the first African American president of the United States requires a library devoted to serious study of his time and legacy.
Besides, these are interesting times. And as the waters rise around their feet, future historians will try to understand how the nation could have done so little listening, so late, to the first president who tried to do something about global warming.
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