Good Luck

Nat Hentoff, writing in today's Washington Times, that builds upon an earlier article posted at Nieman Watchdog by Steven Aftergood of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists--an indispensable resource for those interested in the lengths the government goes to in order to keep certain things secret.

Aftergood's article implores the press that is following the candidates to ask each whether they will uncork Bush related documents and other information once he or she is sworn in as president. The specific questions can be found at Nieman, but they range from disclosing the full scope of Bush's domestic surveillance program to apologizing to those individuals who have been rounded up via extraordinary rendition and later found to be innocent, such as Canadian citizen Maher Arar.

Hentoff uses his column to ditto that of Aftergood's, and even adds a few of his own--such as the legal opinions of Bush-era attorneys general, and I suspect those at the deputy level as well (particularly at the OLC). Hentoff writes:

But I haven't heard any of the frontrunners stress this need for a clean break with the Bush administration's use of a "unitary executive" doctrine to cloak these and other extrajudicial — and indeed extralegal — practices in deep secrecy. Will they publicly agree to Mr. Aftergood's challenge to "declassify and disclose" these and other Bush administration policies that — unless exposed to sunlight — could continue to be embedded in executive agencies in the new administration?

To Hentoff, I say the following:

Don't hold your breath about a flurry of openness once the next president takes office. That has not been the practice in the past and it is not likely to be one for the future. The next president will be all about leaving the past behind us while focusing on the future. Remember when Clinton took office he didn't blink at looking more carefully into the blanket pardons by Bush I for Iran-Contra figures, nor did he expose any of the activity of VP Quayle's Council on Competitiveness. And when Clinton left office, President Bush issued his first claim of executive privilege to stop an investigation by Representative Dan Burton (R-Looneyville) into the actions by AG Janet Reno. The next president has to be mindful of the things he or she would like to keep private once his or her term is up.

And second, even if a candidate eschewed the unitary executive, it wouldn't be true. The next president will take hold of the unitary executive, or more likely, the unitary executive will take hold of him or her. It is so much a part of the executive branch that to get rid of it would be as difficult as chopping off your own arm. Here is the real puzzler--the next president will likely act more in terms of those unitarians that directly preceded Bush II. Will reporters like Hentoff and others then praise that president for declaring the unitary executive dead simply because he or she is not behaving like Bush II? I think that is the more likely scenario.

A Muddled Mess

Rafael Valero of National Journal files a story--which seemingly demonstrates that NJ does not consider itself a slave to the 24 hour news cycle since it is nearly a month old--on the signing statement President Bush signed to the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008. This is the bill that President Bush attempted to pocket veto back in December because of complaints from the Iraq Government--an action that drew the wrath of Congress because he had not signaled at any stage of the game that a veto was coming (I have documented the pocket veto controversy here and the signing statement controversy here). In the article, John Woolley, a political scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a co-founder of the American Presidency Project--an extremely valuable website if you need hard data on the American Presidency, refers to Bush's veto as a pocket veto--something that he should know better than to say. Bush attempted a "protective return" pocket veto and Congress balked, forcing a Bush veto.

As for the article, despite my best efforts to make the number of signing statements issued (159) and the number of provisions challenged (1,167) public, Valero continues to report old figures--156 statements issued and "over 750" provisions challenged. Second, most of it simply rehashes what has already been reported nearly a month ago--that the challenges were made because they interfered with Bush's negotiations with the Iraqi Government to lock the US--and the next president--into a long term commitment and because it created several oversight organizations, such as the Commission on Wartime Contracting--which monitors government contracting.

There are a couple of interesting nuggets, if for nothing more than to demonstrate Valero's lack of curiosity to scratch deeper than the surface. First, Valero claims that the president vetoed the first bill back in December because of these problematic oversight provisions and not because of the complaints from the Iraqi government. His source for this is "critics," and it is a bit of a head scratcher. Back in December, when the first bill was vetoed, the administration and the Congress quickly worked together to deal with the complaints from the Iraqis. There is nothing anywhere to suggest that the administration also tried to get the Congress to water down or remove the troublesome provisions identified in the signing statement. After President Bush signed the bill and made the challenges, the Congress was completely blindsided because the administration had never mentioned any concern regarding any of those provisions. So why would critics suggest that all of this negative attention was over a failed "bait and switch"? It seems to me that this claim deserved more than the passing attention it received.

Second, he mentions the Commission on Wartime Contracting, the brainchild of Senators Jim Webb (D. VA) and Claire McCaskill (D. MO). The Commission is a "hybrid" commission that contains individuals appointed by the leadership in the House and Senate, and individuals appointed by the president. This provision in the National Defense Authorization bill is one that President Bush challenged in his signing statement. So far the Commission has not met because the Congress is "waiting to see whether the White House will name its two representatives...". I am not sure why the Congress does not go ahead and appoint their members and then apply public pressure against the White House to appoint its members (or face a rhetorical assault that the White House is in favor of poaching by companies like Haliburton)? Valero claims that the White House "has indicated" that it "might...help set up the commission." Might help set up? Why might? The bill that President Bush signed claims the administration must appoint their members, not might appoint their members. Valero lacks interest in the administration's claim that it "might" obey the law. Instead, he falls to the superficial:

"Woolley, fascinated by the politicking involved with the Defense bill, the president's signing statements, and the constitutional implications, said that Bush's stance is "pretty clever politics, but it's not clear that it is good democracy."

You need a Ph.D. to make that conclusion? And you wonder why the public has lost faith in government and the media?