Obama Writes His Own Story

On a recent morning at Chicago’s new Obama Presidential Center, the institution’s leadership discussed presidential papers the way a decluttering convert might talk about some old sweaters they tossed because they did not spark joy.The campus contains many features sure to delight the misty-eyed visitors who will flock here once it opens, on June 19: a museum that can come across like a pep talk from a more hopeful time; a light-filled basketball court; a whimsical playground; a public library. It even has a new sledding hill because Michelle Obama, who grew up nearby, recalled having to forgo the winter activity because the area was so flat.What this $850 million Obamaplex does not have, however, are the archives of the 44th president. Those that aren’t are already in the process of being digitized and can be found in physical form more than 600 miles away, in Maryland. “The advantages of having everything in one location might be fun for people who like to sift through the papers,” Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett told reporters. “We would much rather have a Chicago Public Library on our site than filling it up with a bunch of papers.”After standing in the glow of this new South Side landmark, I admittedly feel like a buzzkill focusing on documents, kind of like visiting the Sistine Chapel and contemplating the plumbing. Did you see that exuberant Mark Bradford work? And what about the jaw-dropping view of Lake Michigan from the tower?Lyndon French for The AtlanticBut the papers, or lack thereof, are symptomatic of a more crucial shift with the Obama Center. Though many will dub it a “presidential library,” the complex, in a break with tradition, is not technically a part of the federal presidential-library system and instead is entirely controlled by the Obama Foundation. Early on in planning, the organization split with the National Archives and Records Administration, meaning that although it partners with NARA, which is digitizing Barack Obama’s documents,