The financing of the presidential libraries of former presidents is starting to become another unattractive aspect of political cash-passing.

When the Democratic primary between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was still going hot and heavy, one of the important pieces of political information that the media and others following the campaign were trying to surface was who had contributed and how much to the $165 million presidential library of Bill Clinton in Little Rock. For a while, Mrs. Clinton held out on that information and on her and the former president's tax returns.

She finally coughed up the tax returns -- $109 million in income since he left the presidency -- but the financing of the presidential library never did come out. Finally, she dropped out of the race, making the information interesting but less urgent in its relevance.

The latest piece of revolting behavior in the presidential library financing category came this week when it was revealed that Stephen Payne, a Houston businessman and earlier cash bundler for campaigns of President George W. Bush, had been caught on videotape soliciting a six-figure donation from a person whom he thought was a representative of the former president of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev, to Mr. Bush's eventual library. The facility, to occupy 24 acres, is expected to cost $200 million and will be located at Southern Methodist University in University Park, a community in the middle of Dallas.

Mr. Payne is on tape offering meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in return for the Kyrgyzstan contribution. The White House has denied the link. Kyrgyzstan, population 5.4 million, an agricultural country with a per capita income of $2,000 a year, has not been exactly a model of democracy, tranquillity or honest government. It does, however, host an American air base. It has received some $268 million in U.S. aid since Mr. Bush came to office.

Presidential library financing -- whether the facility be that of a former Democratic or a former Republican president -- is one more area where absolute transparency to the public should prevail. Mr. Payne's solicitation to the Kyrgyzstani representative makes crystal clear the potential link between money to these libraries and current, in-office favors.

This should not be.