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Clinton Haters Look to Mock His Library

Posted on: Tuesday, 22 July 2003, 06:00 CDT

Just a few blocks from the future site of Bill Clinton's $160 million presidential library, a couple of Clinton haters hope to open a museum devoted to mocking his presidency.

"As long as he's talking, we'll have to be here trying to keep him somewhat honest and stop him from rewriting history," says John LeBoutillier, a former Republican congressman from New York who rode Ronald Reagan's coattails to victory in 1980.

LeBoutillier and his partner, Houston businessman Richard Erickson, plan to call it the Counter-Clinton Library. They say the museum here and one planned for Washington will look at such topics as Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky, the last-minute pardons, even damaged White House furniture.

"We already hear he's going to bring a bunch of egghead economists to his library to say how great the economy was when he was president," LeBoutillier says. "And we'll find our own who can say it had nothing to do with him."

The two partners hope to open their place the same day that Clinton's opens in November 2004. They say they will need $5 million. LeBoutillier says thousands of donations have come in and the average one is $72, but he will not say exactly how much has been raised so far.

Dick Morris, the Clinton strategist who resigned in a sex scandal, has pledged stacks of his insider documents, as has Gary Aldrich, the former FBI agent who wrote a best seller about Clinton's scandals.

"We think people will want to come out of the Clinton Library and head immediately down the street to us to get the rest of the story," LeBoutillier says.

In recent appearances, Clinton said that the big picture of his presidency is being obscured and that his library will set the record straight.

The designer of the Clinton museum, Ralph Appelbaum, said the place will deal with Clinton's impeachment, but will focus on how Clinton policies smoothed the political and technological transition into the 21st century and fostered unprecedented economic growth.

LeBoutillier - who once called the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill "fat, bloated and out of control, just like the federal budget" - says Clinton's library will require immediate rebuttal in a way that libraries of other scandalized ex-presidents do not.

"Reagan, Nixon, that's the past," he says. "The problem is Clinton's still young, he's the most powerful force in Democratic politics, and he would like nothing more than to erase the past so he can return to the White House with Hillary."

Skip Rutherford, president of the foundation paying for Clinton's library, says he had hoped for a political cease-fire.

"The haters don't have to like or agree with Clinton, but they need to acknowledge that only 43 men have done this - reached the pinnacle," he says. "I think they need to move on with their lives."

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