A BuzzFlash Editorial Commentary and News Alert

November 8, 2001

BUSH IS NOT JUST TRYING TO COVER UP PRESIDENTIAL ACTIVITY, HE IS TRYING TO KEEP HIS RECORDS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS SECRET, TOO

Among the many cliche ridden mantras of the Bush administration has been the former Texas Governor's repetition of a phrase about how endless is his trust in the American people. But, as we are increasingly learning, the man from Texas apparently trusts the American public about as far as he can spit.

For months, the Bush administration has been delaying releasing papers from the Reagan administration, required under the Presidential Records Act of 1978. Speculation has run rampant that there is possibly incriminating information that would tarnish current Bush Administration members and perhaps Reagan's Vice President, George Bush. So the White House stalled, until it could issue, under cover of the terrorist alerts, an executive order which would allow Bush to keep the Reagan records under seal (except under almost insurmountable circumstances). Indeed, it would ensure that the Bush I administration records would also be kept under seal (except, again, under rather unlikely conditions).

It would allow Bush II to keep his papers from public access in the future, based on the terms of the executive order.

In short, it as outrage, an assault on the very compact of trust between a President and the American public. It is not the action taken by a leader of a democracy.

(see: http://www.observer.com/pages/conason.asp
also see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27293-2001Nov1.html)

But don't think Bush is conducting his assault on presidential accountability without precedent. BuzzFlash research has uncovered an account in the Austin Chronicle on how Bush is trying, with the aid of Texas political allies, to keep his records as Governor from being released to the public. Yes, BuzzFlash has always said what Bush did to Texas, he will do to the nation.

In a September 12, 2001, article (see http://www.auschron.com/issues/dispatch/2001-09-28/pols_feature2.html), the Austin Chronicle noted that Bush's Gubernatorial records were moved to his father's Presidential library this past January, around the time of the Inaugural. The purpose of this transfer was to apparently put Bush's record as Governor under federal authority. Due to a variety of reasons, this would indefinitely hamper or even preclude access to the archives of his Governorship for the foreseeable future.

The Austin Chronicle article notes:

"The final outcome, intended or not, may be to keep the record of George W. Bush's six-year term in Austin out of reach of historians and journalists -- and the public -- at least until Bush's term in the White House ends, and perhaps longer....

George W. Bush is not the first former Texas governor to consign his papers to a repository other than the state archives. John Connally, for example, left his papers to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library at UT. Bill Clements' archives are also at A&M, although not housed in the federal archives. But a crucial difference separates these past cases from what President Bush is now attempting to do. The state of Texas retained title to the official papers of Connally and Clements, and the State Library and Archives kept copies of the documents as well. In the case of the Bush papers, state archivists have never been permitted even to sort through the complete documents, or arrange or classify them. President Bush's private attorney, supported by Gov. Perry's office, is apparently now taking the position that the records no longer belong to the state."

And of course, there's more:

"Who holds title to -- and who holds possession of -- the records of the Bush's gubernatorial administration is particularly important. Although George W. Bush has not been caught in an illicit relationship with an intern, his stay in the White House has already shown him to be vulnerable in the most fundamental aspect of politics: policy. Because of the president's limited public experience prior to 1994, the record of his term in Austin takes on special importance in understanding and influencing, and perhaps redirecting, his present administration. (Imagine the uproar if Bill Clinton had tried to shield his Arkansas gubernatorial records.) The files now held prisoner in College Station include documents related to the imposition of the death penalty, policies toward the environment and toward minorities, health care and welfare reform, as well as a variety of other social issues.

If Bush is permitted to leave his state records in the hands of federal archivists, the benefits to his administration -- at least in political terms -- could well be substantial. For a politician, no news is good news. Under the federal Freedom of Information Act, processing a request for information via federal disclosure can and often does take years. Disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act, on the other hand, typically takes weeks -- and sometimes only days. State archivists say, moreover, they have been informed by National Archives officials that the George W. Bush gubernatorial papers are a low priority for assessment and cataloguing, since the federal archivists' primary responsibility is to finish their work on the papers relating to the career of the first President Bush. "They've said as much," a state official remarked of the federal archivists in College Station. "They're not going to do anything till the end of the presidential administration, at which point [there will be] a George W. Bush Library and then they might process [the gubernatorial records] -- after the presidential records." In the meantime, the Bush papers are in a kind of bureaucratic limbo. Said State Librarian Peggy Rudd: "I think at this point it would be very difficult to determine if something were lost."

The Bush administration's contempt for democracy is fast moving beyond the arrogant category. It's quickly becoming a very threat to the difference between what makes our nation great, and the first steps toward something that makes a mockery of democracy itself. But it's no mere fodder for cartoonists and satirists. It's the real thing, an executive branch that is trying to assume the right to keep the American public in the dark in perpetuity about information that it rightfully owns.

Keeping a President from being above the law, from evading responsibility for his actions through the cloak of secrecy is one of the distinguishing marks of our great democracy.

The Bush administration is on its way to extinguishing that flame of freedom, in Washington, D.C., and in Texas. Call it what you will, but it has the whiff of despotism about it.

Even some Republicans in Congress have dared to protest this latest act of Royalist behavior. (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51774-2001Nov6.html)

But rest assured, the Bush administration knows that the next step in this process will be a legal challenge. That challenge will make its way through the courts, and the final arbiter will be the infamous five on the Rehnquist Supreme Court who put Bush in the White House.

The Bush administration knows that they will probably back their man once again, because the Rehnquist five know better than many that some secrets are best kept buried.

That's the same route the White House expected for a challenge to Cheney's refusal to turn over to Congress information about who served on his secret energy task force. Guess what, Cheney is still defying the request.

Next time you hear Bush tell Americans how much he trusts us, check to see if he's crossing his fingers behind his back, because he is.

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL COMMENTARY AND NEWS ALERT