A lot of dirt under the rug

By Capt. Fogg

I don't remember whether it came before or after relaxing arsenic standards for drinking water, but one of George W. Bush's first executive orders was to arrogate unto himself and former presidents and vice presidents the power to hide the evidence of their misdeeds. Presidential records might seem to be the property of the folks who pay presidents to work for them, but the party that used to say they would run the country like a business has no intention of letting the public know what they do and for reasons even the less skeptical are starting to see. To quote from Orwell's 1984, "Ignorance is strength." He stays strong as long as we stay ignorant.

At first I thought the idea was to protect his father from information about the Iran-Contra affair, but it's obvious he was doing what past leaders from the Caesars to the Communists did: making sure history was on his side by writing it.

One of the few glimmers of hope coming from our new Congress is a bill co-sponsored by chair of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA.) The Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007 is being debated in the house as I write this.

"There are those who would like to rewrite history, and to the extent we can keep that from happening, I think this bill goes a long way," says Waxman. He's right, and we have a long way to go.

Updates and more information at The Gavel.

(Cross-posted at Human Voices.)