Last week, Univ. of Chicago Professor Charles Lipson caused a local storm and became a Chicago celebrity, when he conducted an interview with The Chicago Sun-Times, opposing a secret movement to bring the Obama Presidential library and museum to the University of Chicago. As a result of the news story, Lipson made appearances on both local TV and radio, as well as CNN and the Fox Business Network. The newspaper then ran an editorial endorsing Lipson’s position.
Now, an article in Chicago Magazine by author Carol Felsenthal provides all the information about the outcome. It is a fascinating article on this outspoken professor, once a liberal Democrat who now has registered as a Republican and intends to vote for Mitt Romney in the presidential election.
Lipson’s objection to the plan to bring the presidential museum to the University is because, as he says, a “celebratory museum” is “inappropriate for our school.” If the project included a think tank and a foundation as well, he argues that it would raise questions about how they got their money, and Lipson fears that they would have a bias that would “downplay anything that was negative” and might become “a political and ideological arm of whatever president” was being honored.
Most upsetting is that Lipson reveals that Susan Sher, a close friend of Barack Obama and former chief of staff to Michelle Obama, who had worked closely with the First Lady when she was an officer at the University’s Medical Center, was a member of a secret committee established to study whether the Library and Museum should come to the U of C. Lipson is afraid that the “highest levels” of the University had considered the Library coming to the U of C a done deal, and hence had appointed a committee that included Sher in its ranks, so as to assure a positive outcome. Lipson considers the committee nothing but a fig leaf that would produce a faculty report favoring bringing the Obama museum to the University.
Lipson was so convincing that the Chicago Sun-Times, that ran his op-ed, then ran an editorial endorsing his position.
U of C liberals are not too happy with him. As Lipson puts it, “there are some people who think I’m crazy.”
Those of us who have fought the battle for real freedom in academia owe Professor Lipson our thanks. He has, possibly, made the Obama Presidential Museum and Library a building that now will not be part of the University of Chicago.
Chicago is out. Okay. That leaves us with Hawaii, Indonesia, Kenya, or, perhaps, Martha’s Vineyard.
Professor Lipson is a courageous man. Thank you, Prof. Radosh, for bringing to the attention of PJM’s readers the one-man battle he’s been waging here in Chicago, to his everlasting credit. It is a thankless task, to put it mildly, but he is just the man to wage this important battle: highly principled, highly articulate and more brilliant than all his opponents combined.
Remember, this is the same university where there was a huge stink over a Milton Friedman center in the econ department. Unlike Barak Obama, Friedman was an actual scholar there who got a real (not “Peace”) Nobel Prize.
Our Solyndra Secretary of Energy Steven Chu won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997. Perhaps we should consider Nobel Prizes to be like Pulitzer Prizes…socialist awards.
Obama Museum & Library located anywhere??? He wrote nothing of significance, not even at Harvard!!!
Two ghost-authored autobiographies of a young nobody ought to be worth something. No?
What about Obama’s teleprompter scripts, which he can’t even read fluently?
I don’t know about you guys but I’d as soon see Obama’s library in Chicago – I never plan to visit there. Any where else they might put his library there is a chance for me to stumble on it. I’d hate to go to jail for throwing a brick into the front window.
Maybe we should put the library in a more appropriate – ideologically speaking – place than Chicago. How about Pyongyang, North Korea?
It has to go somewhere, and I can’t imagine a more appropriate place for the Obama Shrine than the thuggish, corrupt hellhole that where he got started.
– floating in a sealed display frame containing helium will be his transcripts and medical records.
actually, the Barack Obama National Amusement Park has a nice ring, especially if it had the roller coaster with the biggest ‘drop’ …..
in a corner of the park, on a shelf, is the Presidential Library – admittance only $3 or a stub from the Hot Dog stand
Obama establishing a library and museum in his name would really be putting on Ayers…
“Those of us who have fought the battle for real freedom in academia owe Professor Lipson our thanks.”
Yep, gotta keep those “celebratory museums” out of our universities. So no doubt Radosh opposes the George W. Bush Library at Southern Methodist U. Or is he a hypocrite? Nah, he probably just hasn’t had time to write about it.
Bush isn’t a celebrity. He is a statesman of mediocre caliber. Obama is just a celebrity.
Ok so where will the TELEPROMPTER” be placed? and how many coloring books in the library and lets not forget the Bronze Broccoli statue. Wowsers what fun!
Check “6″
How about a closet at Trinity United? Appropriate physical and intellectual space.
this chicago idea is a great one. somewhere real gangsta’s would feel right at home. since there isn’t anything he actually wrote, maybe it could be like a theme park w/ different areas showing wax figures depicting scenes from his presidency. there could be a room for all forged his documents, like his birth cert., fake SS #, and selective service registration – probably just a few of many will surely eventually surface. how about a wall full of pix of his failed stimulus companies and shovel ready projects. the main attraction, and one i would pay to see could have wax figures of drug cartel members slaughtering innocent latinos and u.s. border agents using u.s. government supplied guns. maybe even a memorial for all those killed on our purposely porous border. there could be a different area for each of his fiasco’s. this library could, on your way out, have one area honoring chicago criminals from the past. now that’s one thing w/ the kenyan’s name one it that might actually show a profit. speaking of names, what would you call it, the barry barrack hussein obama library?
I nominate Detroit as the “Barack Obama Presidential Museum and Theme Park”. Not the site for the museum but the city itself because Detroit is the real world manifestation of everything Obama believes.