Kitty Kelley in NYT: Bush's Veil Over History

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/opinion/10kelley.html?hp

SECRECY has been perhaps the most consistent trait of the George W. Bush presidency. Whether it involves refusing to provide the names of oil executives who advised Vice President Dick Cheney on energy policy, prohibiting photographs of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, or forbidding the release of files pertaining to Chief Justice John Roberts's tenure in the Justice Department, President Bush seems determined to control what the public is permitted to know. And he has been spectacularly effective, making Richard Nixon look almost transparent.

But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one.

Before that executive order, the National Archives had controlled the release of documents under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which stipulated that all papers, except those pertaining to national security, had to be made available 12 years after a president left office.

Now, however, Mr. Bush can prevent the public from knowing not only what he did in office, but what Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan did in the name of democracy. (Although Mr. Reagan's term ended more than 12 years before the executive order, the Bush administration had filed paperwork in early 2001 to stop the clock, and thus his papers fall under it.)

[Tace]

1. It's Just No Good

I can't understand why people haven't gone apeshit over this stuff.

[renate]

2. well, speaking for the general public

... I hadn't heard about this sh_t. And that's me, who spends WAY too much time online reading about the crimes of the * administration. Most working folks don't have time--what with the working of two jobs and the caring for elderly parents and sheer fatigue, plus the trusting naivete to never even consider that their democracy was being stolen in broad daylight--to realize what's going on.

If the voting public had been told about this--if the media had grown a sack in a timely manner and not now, when it's too late--things might have been very different.

[RamboLiberal]

3. Thanks to sites like DU I knew about this

but remember most Americans were in the throes of whipped-up patriotic fervor from 9-11. And the media had taken their "loyalty oath".

Amazing isn't it that a "tabloid" writer like Kelley is concerned about this and writes a NYT editorial. Where the f*ck are journalists and historians who should be screaming this daily from the rooftops?

[murielm99]

5. She is far less tabloid than many people realize.

I read the Sinatra book, only because Sinatra tried to prevent its' publication. There wasn't much in it that I hadn't already heard, but it was pulled together in one place, and well documented. I don't really care that much about Sinatra, though.

I decided to give her another try with The Family. I paid great attention to the footnotes. She used fewer anonymous sources than I expected. It was well-researched.

She is controversial rather than tabloid. Maybe we need a few more controversial people.

[katty]

19. Kitty Kelley has a rep for being a fastidious about fact checking

she has been around for a long time.

[Skittles]

14. I'm tired of the "don't have time" excuse

too many of these folk can recite the inane plots of garbage like Depserate Housewives but heaven forbid they try to find out what is going on in their own country

[katty]

17. heard about this awhile back-hardly reported, of course

[jbnow]

10. He did this 11/1/01

People were too busy waving the flag, he wasn't really questioned about anything then.

[katty]

18. yeah, the usual 'look over there', while i screw you here

[canichelouis]

4. Can Executive Orders such as this be overturned at a future date?

[RamboLiberal]

6. I believe they can by either a new President or Congress

H'mmm, if we could get a majority in '06. And any Dem president in '08, we need to demand this as one of the first acts.

[gulfcoastliberal]

7. Oh yeah. Most pre 9/11 * executive orders were ones overturning Clinton

executive orders regarding designation of national monuments, etc so he could open them to logging and oil drilling.

[jbnow]

11. I remember that.

I never liked him, he seemed repulsive to me but thought it might be my bias.

I watched at first to see if I could get over my dislike for him, maybe he wouldn't be too bad. But he wasted no time overturning those orders. He silently did so many harmful things. Months into his term a friend asked what I had against him, he didn't seem that bad. I sent a list of changes he had made and it was at least a dozen bad ones.

Anyone I told was surprised and upset. They hadn't heard. That was BEFORE 9/11 as you said. It's funny I came to loathe him because I was paying attention to see if I could dislike him less.

But even then I didn't know how devastating he and his pals would be for America and the world. They get worse and more blatant as time has gone on.

Hoping for change...

[McKenzie]

8. what we tend to forget is...

the politicians are OUR employees. There is a tendency to regard them as something seperate - "the government" - when they are nothing more than temporary servants of the public, paid for and elected by the public. If people wake up to that fact we might have a very different debate with our "employees" in the government.

Michael Moore was right when he wryly commented that democracy means voting once every four years then running around waving little flags shouting "we're free, we're free!"

[MADem]

9. Even the GOP had problems with this stunt when they pulled it

http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/article_04_30_02rescindbush.html

It's really stupid, because when they finally are released, they won't be around to defend themselves...and they will be revealed for the cowards they are. Nixon was able to rehabilitate himself somewhat after WATERGATE, by being able to provide rationale, paint himself with a bit of a victim brush, and tout his foreign policy skills.

Of course, I guess you have to have an argument that you did more good than bad, and that crew does not have one.

[jaded_at_best]

12. disagree

Historians won't need secret papers to judge these corrupt administrations. The genie is out of the bottle as far as Bush II is concerned anyway: corporate profit through torture, hegemony through mass-murder.

One interesting thing in the article however is a possible explanation of the Clinton's recent abominable behavior toward the Bushes, who are probably covering up their crimes, in exchange for the same favor.

[susu369]

16. Welcome to DU

and I agree, the "possible explanation" of the curious behavior of Clinton with the Bushes struck me as well (and the possible future implications with Hillary). Makes sense to me.

[Why Syzygy]

13. One word: Orwell nt

[susu369]

15. A gazillion thank yous to Kitty Kelley!

Ah, I thought this most loathsome and despicable act of bu$h* was long buried. This news has made my day -

Heartfelt thanks to Henry Waxman and other groups as well.

"Other efforts to rectify the situation are equally problematic. Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, has repeatedly introduced legislation to overturn Mr. Bush's executive order, but the chances of a Republican Congress defying a Republican president are slim.

There is also a lawsuit by the American Historical Association and other academic and archival groups before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. A successful verdict could force the National Archives to ignore the executive order and begin making public records from the Reagan and elder Bush administrations."