A Distinction without Honor

As I suggested three years ago, the Organization of American Historians uses the word"distinguished" fairly casually. After multiple arrests for shoplifting, Rick Beard, executive director of Springfield, Illinois' Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, a member of the OAH's Distinguished Lectureship Program and kleptomaniac, has been placed on paid leave from his position at the Lincoln Library. He seems fond of DVDs from Target and men's ties from Macy's. Beard is paid $150,000 a year by Illinois state government and additional salary of an undisclosed amount by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation.