The Sunday Washington Post has an excellent article about how the Bush administration has made the practice of secrecy and non-disclosure a routine practice.
What’s more appalling is that this isn’t in response to September 11th, but in fact began well before the events on that day. And the practice is not just bugging the liberals, there are plenty of conservative public interest groups who are seriously concerned about the new philosophy, enough so to go to court.
Larry Klayman, the Executive Director of Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, said the Bush administration’s attitude is one of “arrogance throughout — that the government is not to be questioned.”
Politicians need watchdogging, and the Bush administration needs it more than most. And they know it. Why else would they be keeping all those secrets?
Update: John Dean (remember him? White House counsel to Nixon?) wrote an op-ed piece on the problems with Bush’s attempts to keep the work of the president hidden behind executive orders and other tactics.
I wonder what he’s hiding.