In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
The Mystery Deepens
The Bush administration's handling of the bipartisan commission investigating the 9/11 tragedy grows worse — and more oddly self-destructive — with each passing day. Following its earlier attempts to withhold documents from the panel and then to deny its members vital testimony, we now learn that President Bush's staff has been withholding thousands of pages of Clinton administration papers as well.
Bill Clinton authorized the release of nearly 11,000 pages of files on his administration's antiterrorism efforts for use by the commission. But aides to Mr. Clinton said the White House, which now has control of the papers, vetoed the transfer of over three-quarters of them. The White House held the documents for more than six weeks, apparently without notifying the commission, and might have kept them indefinitely if Bruce Lindsey, the general counsel of Mr. Clinton's presidential foundation, had not publicly complained this week. Yesterday the commission said the White House had agreed to allow its lawyers to review the withheld documents, but without guaranteeing any would be released.
...
Explaining the latest act of obstruction, Scott McClellan, the president's spokesman, said on Thursday that some documents were duplicative, unrelated or "highly sensitive." The White House, he said, had given the commission "all the information they need." Mr. Bush's staff should not be making that judgment. The commission's 10 members can be trusted with sensitive material.
Moreover, given the repeated criticism of this administration's obsessive secrecy on other issues, it is astonishing that it would still withhold anything that did not pose an immediate and dire threat to national security. The American people would like to know that they have a government that freely gives information to legitimate investigations on matters of grave national interest, not one that fights each reasonable request until it is exposed and forced to submit. The White House is serving no public purpose by acting less interested than the rest of us in having this commission do its vital work. Its ham-handed behavior is also gravely damaging the entire concept of executive privilege.
The White House is acting as if the 9/11 Commission is a grand jury investigating a crime. I thought it was trying to find out what went wrong so we make sure it doesn't happen again (kind of like how after investigations into the sinking of the Titanic they decided to make sure there were lifeboats for everyone, and that the radio room was on 24 hours a day). But Bush is acting like its hiding a crime. Why? No really: Why.
- rob 11:04 PM - [PermaLink] -
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