POLITIK: The Clinton Library

My friend Mary Elizabeth from Arkansas was just in town to visit - we had a blast with the eating and the drinking and the hanging out. It was good to see her - not just because she's cool as hell and cute as the devil - but because I got to ask her about Bill Clinton, something I've been wanting to discuss with some of the natives for awhile. From our emails:

Hey - how different is the relationship with Clinton for folks from Arkansas than with the rest of the country? He seems like Kennedy - for better and for worse - for a lot of our generation's lefties, but maybe, up close, in Little Rock, he's something different. You grew up with Bill - what do you think?

Bill is something different here. For most of his presidency, you couldn't get anyone to admit that they voted for him. It was kind of weird. The scandal hit us pretty hard. We don't like Yankee reporters swarming our cities, getting us drunk and writing things down. Nowadays you get a lot of begrudging, "The library seems to do a lot for the city..."

Most people hate the library. They think it looks like a glass trailer (mobile home). WE aren't big consumers of architecture around here. Also, he had everyone from New York working on the damn thing -- NY architects and NY museum people. Most people could understand the exhibit people, there isn't a company down here that puts together museum displays. I think the architects pissed some people off.

The construction company was local and part of the good ole boy network. I think the owner was an Arkansas Traveler. He paid more in campaign contributions than he made off of the building.

Speaking of the actual building, there are some logical problems with it. Putting a glass box facing east-west wasn't the best idea for a large building in AR. It could turn out to be the world's largest convection oven. Second, it's built on unconsolidated river sediment. There are two support pylons on the north end -- they sunk 8 feet during construction. I have a feeling they will be sinking some more. It would also be a huge problem if the New Madrid (that's new maDRID) fault slips near AR. The closer to LR it goes, the worse it will be for those support pylons.

Hmmmm. A grand scheme engineered and supported by east coast media and liberal elite might find itself hobbled due to insufficiently researched problems back in Arkansas. Well, that's certainly never happened before.