It is the early 2000s and you are the president of the United States, and in a bunker-like room plastered with video monitors, you must decide whether to invade Iraq.
Grim faces appear on the monitors, warning of the wisdom or folly of doing nothing. If that's not enough pressure, a drumbeat soundtrack accompanies a countdown clock.
And if you choose to "take no action," President George W. Bush pops up on one of the monitors to explain why you're wrong.
Welcome to the world of debatable truth presented in the Dallas library dedicated to America's 43rd president and at the 12 other presidential libraries dotted across the United States. Together, those libraries drew about 1 million visitors in the fiscal 2024 year (from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30). For comparison, Chicago's Field Museum alone brought in about 1.2 million visitors for the calendar year 2024.
A uniquely American institution, presidential libraries -- actually archival depositories hinged to a museum of artifacts and curiosities -- have been variously described as monuments to "megalomaniacal self-promotion" and "legacy-polishing temples that all but ignore controversy or criticism." And when a library visitor does...
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