To The Point

America’s 43rd President now has the country’s 13th presidential library. The George W. Bush Presidential Centerhouses the bullhorn from Ground Zero, the pistol from Saddam Hussein’s spider hole and a statue of two favorite dogs. How much is there on missing weapons of mass destruction or Wall Street bailouts? Do Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld or Karl Rove get much attention? Every president since FDR has a similar mix of historical fact and self-serving propaganda assembled on his behalf. We look at the contents, the architecture and the symbolism of Bush’s Center in Dallas and at the role of presidential libraries in our political life.  

Roe v. Wade: Still Fighting after All These Years 

When the Supreme Court legalized abortion 40 years ago today, it may have settled the law, but it started the most bitter of all the battles in America’s ongoing culture war. Roe v. Wade pitted a woman’s right to choose against the right of a fetus to live, an issue that divides America. Although controversy continues, that’s still the law of the land, so much so that a new generation takes it for granted. Polls show a majority still supports legal abortion, but in some states it’s harder and harder to get one. We look at that paradox and update the current strategies of both sides.

Guests:

• Carole Joffe: University of California, Davis, @carolejoffe
• David Gibson: Religion News Service, @gibsonwrites
• Katrina Trinko: National Review Online, @KatrinaTrinko
• Michelle Movahed: Center for Reproductive Rights, @ReproRights
• Ron Brownstein: National Journal Group, @RonBrownstein

Are you eating stolen maple syrup? The New York Times’ Canada correspondent explains… 

Fiction, journalism and Zero Dark Thirty. The film will ”certainly leave the impression that coercive interrogation techniques were used to find Bin Laden.” - CNN National Security correspondent, Peter Bergen on today’s To the Point.