Everything is Secret

The Republican National Committee said it will not abide by a subpoena and turn over documents to a Congressional committee investigating the firings of at least eight US attorneys last year because the RNC is waiting to see if the White House will assert executive privilege over RNC documents at the center of the controversy, according to an outside law firm retained by the RNC.

Let me get this straight. The RNC, a political organization, is waiting to see if the president is going to claim executive privilege over their documents? Just how, exactly, is that supposed to work? It's stretching quite a bit to say that the entire RNC is "the kings man", and in a position where the president could claim that they are an advisor of such importance that they need protection. I suppose they're going to argue that since the president might have seen the documents, or that they might have been seen by someone else the president has declared "off limits" that they can refuse to provide them. Must be nice.

JK Rowling would be proud. Once again, Bush is trying to make the narrow accepted definition of executive privilege do double-duty as is personal Secret Keeper. He seems to think he can just decide that information that might make him look bad is simply unavailable to anyone else, for whatever reason he wants, for as long as he wants.

The day a political party gets executive privilege, the whole concept of "democracy" gets set by the wayside.