Aiming bipartisan fire at what it described as the Bush administration’s alarming penchant for secrecy, a group of House Republicans and Democrats yesterday introduced legislation to cancel President Bush’s executive order restricting the release of presidential records.
“Bush’s order, issued last November, allows a former or sitting president — and in some cases the family of a dead president — to block the release of records requested under the law by invoking “constitutionally based privileges.” Journalists, historians and others seeking the records would have to go to court to challenge the privilege claims.”
My question is simple here. Was the whole country in the midst of the post 9/11 catharsis (that we just now seem to be waking from), when this order was issued? All the way back to Wilson, we’ve never let a president have this much executive privy, why would this particular time in history be different. I can’t see this as anything else but an opportunist action on the bush cabinet (link via metafilter).