NYT Op-Ed William Safire : Behind Closed Doors

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 13:45:28 -0800
From: Shannon McElyea <shannon () swisscreek com>
Subject: FW: NYT Op-Ed William Safire : Behind Closed Doors
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>

did not see this on IP...

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Op-Ed Columnist: Behind Closed Doors

December 17, 2003
 By WILLIAM SAFIRE


WASHINGTON - When George W. Bush was running for president,
he was inspiring on the subject of privacy. But it was not
your privacy or mine he was talking about. He has gone all
out to keep his administration's energy-legislation
deliberations from public scrutiny.

Cast your mind back to the White House task force, led by
Vice President Dick Cheney, that came up with the stalled
Bush oil policy. Democrats complained that it met
frequently with Enron and other energy executives but blew
off environmental lobbyists. Bush and Cheney, sensitive to
charges of being too close to the oil industry, clammed up.


That secrecy violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act,
claimed the rightist Judicial Watch and the leftist Sierra
Club as they sued for access. Cheney's lawyers dumped
30,000 pieces of wastepaper on them from around the
bureaucracy, but not one memo produced by Cheney's group.
Only federal officials were members of that task force,
Bush lawyers argued, so advice from outside consultants is
none of the public's business.

A federal court ruled against the stonewalling, and an
appeals court let the ruling to allow discovery stand. But
the administration escalated the case to "the president's
constitutional authority to gather candid advice from his
advisers" plus "fundamental separation of powers
questions." Up it went to the Supreme Court.

This week the justices, who apparently have nothing better
to do next year, agreed to hear the Cheney appeal. The
administration's eagerness to slam the door in the snoopy
public's face will now be argued before the high court
during political primaries and probably decided in July,
right before the issue-hungry Democratic political
convention.

Are Republicans out of their collective mind? Why the hots
to hide? A decade ago, Hillary Clinton tried to pull the
same kind of wool over the people's eyes about her health
care task force, but the D.C. appeals court ruled that her
consultants were "de facto members" of the official group
and stripped away the secrecy.

Remember how we raised the roof about all those phony
executive privilege claims as Clinton lawyers tried to jam
a cone of silence on top of Secret Service agents? Remember
how we fought for the right of Paula Jones to subject the
high and mighty to discovery? What is sauce for the
Clintons is sauce for the Bushies.

An ordinarily astute S.A.O. (senior administration
official) assures me that no potential embarrassment is at
the root of this unnecessary fight to the finish, and that
it's just the principle of the thing.

Let us assume that the court's surprising willingness to
hear the case - despite the appeals court's refusal to
overturn the district court's discovery permission - augers
ill for government in the sunshine. Assume, too, that Ted
Olson, the most respected solicitor general since Erwin
Griswold, is at his most persuasive in seeking a landmark
decision holding that "any discovery" would be
unconstitutional, thereby placing the vice president high
above the law.

The principle of the thing is wrong. Of course the
president's cabinet and staff should be able to offer
reasonable confidentiality to outsiders in return for
candid advice. But when it comes to domestic legislation
and not sensitive national-security affairs, the names and
the advice of outside consultants and lobbyists should be
discoverable according to law.

How's this for a practical principle: don't use a
sledgehammer to swat a gnat. The Supreme Court,
courageously and at some cost, did its bit for the Bush
administration's electoral legitimacy. It should not now be
called upon at re-election time to erect a high barrier to
finding out who is advising whom about the public's
business behind closed doors.

Beyond this case, even when it comes to federal officials,
the argument that only secrecy ensures candor is specious.
Presidents record and blab; speechwriters remember and tell
all; most advisers want their "private" advice to become
known. When, in a memoir, I protected a colleague by not
mentioning his unpopular advice in an Oval Office meeting,
he objected furiously to having been left out of history.

If "freedom" is the word Bush and Cheney want as the
hallmark of their administration, they should begin with
freedom of information.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/opinion/17SAFI.html?ex=1072869915&ei=1&en=
ec5a87be6571fe52


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