Paper View
The Washington Post “Fact Checker” weighs in on the Clinton’s papers, and comes up with a simple pointless solution that will never see the light of day.
She says she’s for disclosure, he blamed the Bush White House, the Archives says President Clinton’s representatives have a blanket list of topics they don’t want out till they see the papers first. A Bush Executive Order gave this power to ex president’s and their children after them just as Reagan era papers were about to surface. With the sitting president getting yet another whack at preventing disclosure afterwards.
The Post says Clinton should let it all hang out:
‘There is, however, nothing in Executive Order 13233 that obliges a former president, or his representative, to go through the records one by one. If former President Clinton is so opposed to the Bush administration order, he could simply instruct Lindsey to approve the documents wholesale.”
Brilliant. Perhaps the Clinton’s have wandered into a trap Bush devised, perhaps their intentions are impure. But as is often said in political money arguments, why should they unilaterally disarm? We’ve decades to go before we’ll see the Reagan and Bush 1 documents in full.
Absent a real law not twisted into it’s reverse by crackpot Executive Orders our knowledge of past administrations will be based more on contemporary leaks and fatuous memoirs.