CHICAGO — The tower of the Obama Presidential Center is getting a lot of attention as it rises in Jackson Park on the South Side. Meanwhile, Louise Bernard is trying to build the centerpiece museum’s interior: balancing former President Barack Obama’s philosophy and his namesake foundation’s mission with historical accuracy in a time of corrosive partisanship.
While plans for the center’s outer shell have been known (and litigated over) for years, its insides — and the narrative Obama’s team plans to present over four floors of distinct exhibits — have largely been unknown.
The woman leading that narrative charge is Bernard, a native of the United Kingdom who was named museum director in the spring of 2017.
During an exclusive interview, Bernard said she has grappled with how to approach Obama’s history and the controversies and challenges from his two terms in office, and present them at an institution critics worry will turn into yet another of the presidential “temples of spin” instead of an unbiased reflection of the time.
Among those Obama-era controversies: the rise of drone warfare, occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, failure to close Guantánamo Bay, and the more fragile aspects of the landmark Affordable Care Act and nuclear agreement with Iran.
Bernard said while the center has an emphasis on the “values-based” leadership of the president and Michelle Obama, her team “leaned hard” into using primary source documents that help show the Obamas’ thinking at the time they made decisions in the White House. And she noted the historical interpretation is almost certain to shift and evolve with time.
Of drones, for instance, Bernard said the museum team sought to place them “in the context of the administration’s goals for national security … certainly there was critique from both the left and the right. The president wanted for us, in terms of exhibit-making, to engage around the…
Read the full article here
