Not all presidents are created equal.

It's amazing how having the first black president can change things.

For instance, everyone knows that presidents all have "presidential libraries", right?

Well, not so fast.

The Washington Post just ran an editorial written by Jonathan Zimmerman questioning why we need these "brick, concrete, and stone" structures to stroke the egos of our former presidents.

"Like the ancients, presidents start planning these shrines before their rule comes to an end. So early this year, President Obama will decree whether his own library will be in Chicago, New York or Hawaii.

The competition is fierce. It was reported recently that Obama’s library foundation was skeptical about a bid from the University of Chicago because the university does not own the locations where it proposed placing the building. So Chicago mayor and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel swung into action, announcing Monday that the city would help the university acquire the land it needs.

But why should each president get his own library? Multiple libraries are wasteful, costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year. And they’re undemocratic, because they allow our presidents — not the people who elected them — to define their legacies.

Presidential libraries aren’t mentioned in the Constitution or in any of our other founding documents. They date to 1938, when Franklin D. Roosevelt — midway through his second term of office — announced that he would personally construct a public archive in his native Hyde Park, N.Y.

Roosevelt was worried that the records of his administration — like many prior presidents’ papers — would be lost, destroyed or sold off to private bidders. He also wanted a place to write his memoirs and, most of all, to burnish his image as a defender of democracy.

So when Roosevelt opened his library in 1941, shortly after winning a third term, he contrasted American traditions of freedom to the looming threat of fascism. “This latest addition to the archives of America is dedicated at a moment when government of the people by themselves is being attacked everywhere,” he declared. [Source]

The writer has decided that he doesn't like the idea of libraries too much all of a sudden. He kind of wants a research center where the works of all of our presidents are kept together, where, as he argues, they could be maintained at cheaper and more efficient rate.

It might not be such a bad idea. I am just kind of wondering why this particular president led us to this debate.
It seems like just a few years a go this same Washington Post was writing glowingly about a presidential library for one of our early presidents. But hey, he didn't look like this president, so that would kind of explain things.

I know one thing, if a certain element in this county had their way, the Obama presidential library would look like the picture that you are looking at to the left.

Hey, if George Bush- a man who admits to not liking to read,- has a presidential library, there should be no issues with this current president getting one as well.