House Overturns Bush Order That Limited Info For Future Historians
We’ve all heard it and by now it’s a cliche: “Well, we won’t know what REALLY went on until they leave office and the historians get to take a long look at it.”
Since 2001 that cliche has actually been largely inoperative due to an order signed by President George Bush that some felt was designed to preserve and influence (by slicing off information that might be negative) his legacy and the legacy of his father. But now the House has voted to overturn it — and by a margin big enough that it seems as if Bush’s veto threat won’t mean much:
Brushing aside a veto threat, the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to overturn a 2001 order by President George W. Bush that lets former presidents keep their papers secret indefinitely.
The measure, which drew bipartisan support and passed by a veto-busting 333-93 margin, was among White House-opposed bills the House passed that would widen access to government information and protect government whistleblowers.
“Today, Congress took an important step toward restoring openness and transparency in government,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said.
The presidential papers bill nullifies a November 2001 order, criticized by historians, in which Bush allowed the White House or a former president to block release of a former president’s papers and put the onus on researchers to show a “specific need” for many types of records.
Among beneficiaries of the Bush order was Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, a former vice president and president.
And it would have allowed Vice President Dick Cheney to halt the flow of info to future historians as well:
The order gave former vice presidents the right to stop the release of their papers through an executive privilege that previously only presidents could use. And it extended to deceased presidents’ designees rights to keep their papers secret indefinitely.
The House bill would give current and former presidents 40 business days to object to requests to view their papers, allow a sitting president to override a former president’s claim of executive privilege and strip former vice presidents and the designees of deceased presidents of the power to use executive privilege to block access to their historical documents.
That’s a significant shift. This is essentially a battle to ensure future Presidents (and Vice Presidents) who could control information while in office are not allowed to interfere with the work of historians who look at an era and then draw lessons from it. How could historians analyze the lessons if all that’s available is official spin material from former Presidents and former Veeps?
Who determines the legacy? Is it what a former President or former Vice President want it to be? Or in the interest of America learning positive and negative lessons, is it NOT the right of former government bigwigs to lock up materials willy nilly that might put them in a bad light?
Three notable things here: (1)This order by Bush is part of a pattern of controlling information that is indicative of this administration’s constant effort to give the public highly selective facts (and some of them turned out to wrong). (2)It would not be surprising to see, if this law passes and survives a veto attempt, the administration challenge this in court. (3)When this story first broke some years ago it was noted how this would allow Bush 41 to keep lots of information bottled up.
Why is there such a desire to keep this info from public historians? Whatever it is, politicos don’t usually try to lock up information that puts them in a GOOD light…
10 Responses to “House Overturns Bush Order That Limited Info For Future Historians”
As a journalist, historian and someone who works with visiting scholars at a major manuscript and rare book library, this is a hugely positive development.
I am not, however, so sanguine about the bill surviving a veto attempt. Having blown his mandate, at this point, George Bush has little to lose.
I don’t see Bush fighting this in court if it passes.
I don’t see Bush being successful if he does fight it in court. Even his own appointees to the courts would have a hard time finding a constitutional standing for his censorship of historical records.
I believe it to be evident from recent events that the tide has turned for Mr. Bush. He’ll need to carefully pick and choose his fights for the remainder of his time in office.
Why did this get so little attention in the media at the time the original order was issued? This shows that Bush 43 was more like Richard Nixon than Ronald Reagan from the getgo, as it was a move that revealed his insecurities.
kritter:
It got so little attention because all of us lined up behind the President after 9/11. He took advantage of our nation, united in mourning to get as much power and privilege which would have caused outrage at any other time.
I think this administration saw this coming, that would explain why they are trying to raise 500 million for the presidential library. I don’t see this as an effective way to whitewash his legacy though. Other organizations, whether liberal or moderate, have the ability to raise money and fund historians to do research and write the history of the Bush misadministration.
Kritter:
The entire matter slipped below the radar in the early days of the administration because Bush was trooping around acting presidential and that, not what was going on behind the scenes, was the big news.
There have been periodic stories on the order and I have blogged several times on it, most recently in contrasting the order to the decision by the Martin Luther King family to make sure that many of the reverend’s papers that were destined for public auction and likely sale to a private collector instead ended up in a public institution.
We’re not out of the woods on this one yet. Beyond a veto threat, there may be other ways that this secrecy obsessed White House can limit access. This gang is no more clever than when being perfidious.
Actually, I remember Bush’s original order sparking a lot of controversy. But you have to remember, this was one of the first things he did under cover of “the post 9-11 world”.
November 1, 2001:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20731-2001Oct31
Shaun- I guess we’re lucky that the “Can’t Shoot Straight Gang” isn’t any better at hiding what they’re up to than Tricky Dick was. This latest relevation that DOJ actually ranked 93 US Attorneys by their loyalty to the administration (their idea of performance, lol) reminds me of Nixon sitting up nights writing his enemies list on a yellow legal pad.
As someone who care deeply about history, I hope Bush does not veto…and if so, that the veto is overridden.
There is, of course, much that we will never know. Cheney, for example, has publicly stated that he rarely takes notes or issues memorandum, because of his experience of Watergate and his observance of the Clinton WH being buried in investigations.
This may have saved Cheney’s ass in the Libby affair, as his paper trail is at a minimum.
This is an ABSURD ruling on Bush’s part. I will cite just one thing. Recently I had to look at the transcripts of Bush Senior’s Summit with Gorbachev at Malta. The only transcript in existence is the Soviet one…the US one is still Classified Top Secret.
Seriously. Over 15 years later! The Soviet Union no longer exists, and the Soviet transcript is mundane. No secrets at all.
Anyone who cares at all about the truth or about history should be aware of this issue, and do what they can to make sure the truth gets out. I suspect this is a sideline political attack on Bush…but it is, coincidentally, one that serves the greater good!!!
“I suspect this is a sideline political attack on Bush…but it is, coincidentally, one that serves the greater good!!! ”
Which is why so many republicans voted for it…
Alternatively, some voted for it because they believed in it. Others voted for it because they don’t want to be on the short end of the stick with a Democratic president. And there could be motives unstated yet.
Transparency in the government is a good thing, regardless of who’s in power.
“There is, of course, much that we will never know. Cheney, for example, has publicly stated that he rarely takes notes or issues memorandum, because of his experience of Watergate and his observance of the Clinton WH being buried in investigations”
What’s ironic, Marlowe, is that this administration is being buried under investigations. The fired USA’s is just getting started, they are looking into Plamegate tomorrow, and have already had hearings on contractor fraud in Iraq , and the WR imbroglio. While I do think that this WH needs to operate more openly, and badly has needed some oversight, I would hate to see each successive Congress either sit idly by while Rome burns as the GOP did for the last 6 years, or engage in innumerable hearings if the President happens to be from the opposing party. The Republican set a bad precedent with Clinton, though his own party didn’t provide much oversight before 1994, either.