Will The Constitution Center Survive?

When Ed Rendell was Mayor of Philadelphia and Governor of Pennsylvania, he was an indefatigable cheerleader for the city. The Kimmel Center, National Museum of American Jewish History, and the National Constitution Center owe their existence to his fundraising prowess and his superhero ability to extract money from the federal and state budgets. Rendell's political philosophy seemed to be borrowed from the "Field of Dreams" - "Build it and they will come."

Now that he is out of office, these institutions are floundering. When his final legacy is written, it may be littered with white elephants throughout the city. The Kimmel Center has cut back its programming schedule. Most of their reduced schedule is joint productions with concert promoters. Attendance at the Jewish Museum and the Constitution Center has fallen short of projections. 

The National Constitution Center seems to be in the most danger of shutting its doors. The head of the center, David Eisner, recently resigned his $400,000 job. With no new job lined up, the announcement indicates to me that he is in a rush to leave a sinking Titanic.

Eisner's tenure at the Constitution Center was a failure. A diffident public speaker, he never clearly articulated a vision for the center. Without the exhibit of Bruce Springsteen memorabilia this year, center attendance would have fallen off the cliff.

Like the Princess Diana exhibit before it, the Springsteen exhibit had no real ties to the stated mission of the center, which is to teach visitors about the constitution. The overflowing crowds at the press luncheon for the Springsteen exhibit did not hear a lecture about copyright laws or freedom of speech that would have linked the exhibit to the constitution. Instead a photographer showed his early photographs of Bruce. The best indication that the Constitution Center has lost its way were the covering up of the picture of founding father George Washington by a photograph of Bruce and the enlarged photo of Bruce that overpowered the building's inscription of "We the People".

Similarly, the selection of Muhammad Ali for this year's Liberty Medal while the nation is at war is a slap in the face to all the soldiers that have died defending our constitution. Being the daughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors, I revere Ali's fight for religious freedom. I just think that he should be honored when the nation is not at war. When thousands of return soldiers suffering from post- traumatic stress disorder are committing suicide, it is not the right time to honor a draft evader.

While former Defense Secretary Bob Gates honorably served his country, his speech at the Liberty Medal was his regular canned speech. He was ubiquitous on the lecture circuit last year. I heard him give the exact same speech two other times. I had championed the selection of Google executive Wael Ghonim, who was one of the leaders of the Arab Spring in Egypt.

In this bad economy, non- profits can not be choosy about their donors. The Constitution Center may have trouble luring suitable recipients for the Liberty Medal because the lead donor, Ira Lubert, has been accused of fraudulent transferring funds by a bankruptcy trustee.

It is not just the public events that lacked relevance. Although the Constitution Center touts winning State Department funds for participating in the Table to Table program, the superficial agenda for the visiting Latvian students had very few lessons about our constitution. Reading the description of the program provided me with one of my few tea party moments. I was angry that my tax dollars were being wasted on this program.

I attended one of the events at the People for People Charter School in North Philadelphia. Center staffer Sayeh Hormozi could not explain how Latvian teenagers eating lunch at an inner city school was classified as a service project and how it was teaching them about the Constitution. It struck me as racist to think that eating lunch with black children was a service project. As someone who participated as a teenager in archaeological digs at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and picked oranges on a Kibbutz, I am familiar with meaningful service projects.

Although it is one of the main freedoms in the constitution, the center curiously never respected freedom of the press. They limited press access to most of the speakers at the center, including last year's Liberty Medal winner. When former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld appeared at the Center, presidential historian Michael Beschloss used the weak excuse that he did not want to ask the same questions as ABC's Diane Sawyer to avoid asking him hardball questions. They regular bar members of the press, including me, that are critical of the center.

Springsteen returns to the "Streets of Philadelphia".

“From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen,” the first major exhibition about the legendary rock and roller that was originally assembled for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland,  is now in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center until Sept 3, 2012. 

Springsteen himself explains why there should be an exhibit of his work at the National Constitution Center in the opening quote of the exhibit - "I try to chart the distance between American ideals and American reality. That's how my music is laid out."

The guitar he played from 1968-1971

The Stone Pony was one of the first clubs Springsteen played

The handwritten lyrics of Glory Days

The SteelMill was one of the predecessors to E Street. The name reflects  his interest, even then,  in the working class. 

A sign to promote his concert for former Democratic Presidential Candidate George  McGovern

A typical sign brought by fans to request songs

The 1960 corvette, still registered, that Springsteen bought with  the proceeds of "Born to Run". 

Somehow I can picture Springsteen calling his act Springsteen and his Band of Elves

The medal awarded him at the Kennedy Center Honors

Earlier sartorial choices indicate that Springsteen's taste has improved

Before the E Street band, the band was called the Castiles, after the  soap.

The clothes he wore for the album cover of "Born in the USA". 

Jim Henke, who originally put together the exhibit for the Rock and Roll  Hall of Fame, and Frank Stefanko, who  photographed the early album covers

The exhibit underscores that our patriotic troubadour was a pack rat, but will thrill even the most casual of Springsteen’s fans.  Visitors are greeted at the entrance by his 1960 Corvette, which he bought with the money from "Born to Run". It includes 150 items that range from the Fender Esquire guitar featured on the cover of the “Born to Run” album to his hand written lyrics (complete with a flourish on his T’s) of “Glory Days” to his original audition tapes for Columbia Records. Springsteen, who has won 20 Grammies, 2 Golden Globes, and one Oscar, was very involved in the selection of items such as his writing desk and the suit that he wore to the Obama nomination. 

Philadelphia is the natural home for a Springsteen retrospective. Bolstered by the constant plugging of WYSP’s Ed Shockey and his sold out appearances at the local Main Point and Tower Theater, 50% of the sales for his sophomore album, “The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, came from the Philadelphia area. 

Former Defense Secretary Gates Talks Israel

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, while at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to receive the Liberty Medal, criticized Israel again, but is opposed to the unilateral declaration of of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. Gates, who is the first US Secretary of Defense to visit Ramallah, said, "Israel is now alone in the Middle East. Israel has made mistakes. They are having trouble with Egypt. They have alienated Turkey. They assassinated a Hamas leader in the United Arab Emirates."

He blamed their isolation on the settlements. He explained, "The Arabs are angry about the settlements. Every American President  has urged stopping the settlements because each new settlement makes it harder to define the borders."

He dismissed concerns about the right wing coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. "I have known Netanyahu since 1990: Barak since he was chief of staff of the Army. I was with Carter at the Camp David Talks. In my five decades of dealing with Israel, I have seen that peace can only take a major step forward on the Israeli side with conservative leaders -(Menachem) Begin, (Yitzhak)Shamir, (Ariel)Sharon before his stroke."

Gates, who has taken the oath to protect the Constitution 7 times, believes that there can only be progress in the peace negotiations "with aggressive American leadership."

When asked about the upcoming vote on the  unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood, Gates responds, "You have to ask if this advances or hurt the cause of peace. It hurts."

He continued, "Which set of  Palestinians  does this represent? Is it the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is in control and security forces have been trained by the US and cooperate with Israel. Or Gaza, which wants the destruction of Israel."

As for Hezbollah, he reminded the audience that "they had more rockets than most countries."

Rumsfeld Still Defends Going to War

Donald Rumsfeld, who served as Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006, kicked off the book tour for his memoir, “Known and Unknown,” at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on February 9. Rumsfeld had Michael Beschloss, the author of 8 books on US Presidents, to moderate the discussion.

The title “Known and Unknown” is a wink and nod to Rumsfeld’s much ridiculed answer about Iraqi plans to supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. At a press conference in 2002, Rumsfeld said, ““There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

In a private conversation with Secretary Rumsfeld while he is signing my book, I asked him about his current thoughts about Israel in light of the recent monumental changes in the Middle East. He said, “If I was Israel, I would be worried with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

Rumsfeld spent much of the public part of the program defending Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. Curiously, he admitted that Bush never directly asked Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condileezza Rice, or himself if he should invade Iraq. “He knew that if we thought he was wrong we would have voiced our objections,” said the former Secretary of Defense.

“The Iraqi army had fired more than 2000 missiles at American and British planes that were patrolling the no fly zone,” said Rumsfeld. “What is they had killed someone?”

Rumsfeld insisted, “Saddam Hussein and his family were offered safe passage out of the country, but Saddam refused. There was no regime change after Bush senior invaded Iraq so I think he did not think that this Bush would force him to go.”
In his list of good results from the Iraq invasion, Rumsfeld revealed for the first time, “Omar Kadafi of Libya told the United States that he abandoned his nuclear program after the United States invaded Iraq.”

He surmised that Kadafi did not want to suffer the same fate as Saddam Hussein. “He even offered us the opportunity to inspect his nuclear arsenal,” stated Rumsfeld.
Bizarrely, Rumsfeld mentioned that the John Hopkins Smallpox Study “Dark Winter” influenced his decision to go to war. This study found “If Smallpox virus was released into three locations that 800,000 would die and many more would be infected.”

An audience member requested that Rumfseld, who also served as Secretary of Defense under President Ford, to explain the difference between the Iraq and Vietnam Wars. Rumsfeld replied, “We never feared that the Vietnamese would attack America.” Rumsfeld ignored my question -What is the role of Intelligence Services now that they have been proven horribly wrong about 9/11, Iraqi WMDs, and the uprising in the Middle East?

When he went to meet Bush, Rumsfeld never expected that Bush would ask him to become Secretary of Defense. He joked, “I was old man. Joyce (his wife) was telling friends at our 50th high school reunion that this was our rural period.”
When asked by Beschloss about Bush’s intelligence, Rumsfeld first went into a long tangent about the fact that the public considers all Republic Presidents from Eisenhower to Bush stupid. He reminded the audience that Ford, possibly the finest athlete to live in the White House, was considered clumsy.

“Bush is intelligent. He asked penetrating questions. He worked his way with foreign leaders so that they would do constructive things for the US,” he finally answered.

He applauded Bush for implementing the surge in Iraq at a time when Congress was ready to vote the war out of existence. “When the rebels saw the additional troops, they knew that Bush meant business and was not going to give up. They fell into line.”

The audience did learn one interesting statistic about the Department of Defense. Rumsfeld disclosed that the department employs 10,000 lawyers. The Defense Authorization Act ballooned to 574 pages in 2006 from 74 pages in 1976, when he was Secretary of Defense the first time.

Rumsfeld surprisingly mentioned only Democrats as political heroes. They were Franklin Roosevelt and Adlai Stevenson. He did not list well known Republicans such as Arnold Schwarzenegger or Kelsey Grammer as his friends in the entertainment business, but Sammy Davis Jr. and Elvis Presley.

Rumsfeld left the crowd wanting more. Many complained that Beschloss was much too deferential to Rumsfeld. He did not ask questions about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, or waterboarding.

Beschloss explained, “After he served as Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara never spoke in public again for thirty years. I also wanted to cover different ground than the Diane Sawyer interview.”

There was only one protester outside of the National Constitution Center. She had to stand about 100 feet from the entrance of the building. Maybe, the cold stifled dissent.