The New York Times has just published a post by the A.P. in which a judge has just overturned a Bush Executive order allowing Presidents to prevent the publication of any thing coming out of the executive office. The article is here

Here is a copy:

Judge Invalidates Bush Order on Records

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: October 1, 2007

Filed at 5:58 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge on Monday invalided part of a 2001 order by President Bush allowing former presidents to review executive documents before they can be released under open records laws.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the presidential order eliminated the discretion of the National Archives to control the release historical records. She said the executive order allowed former presidents to delay the release of those records ''presumably indefinitely.''

The ruling was made in a lawsuit filed by the American Historical Association and other organizations, which argued that Bush's Executive Order 13,233 was an ''impermissible exercise of the executive power.''

A bill that would overturn the order is pending in the Senate.

This is another example of a pattern in which the Bushies think they above the law. Thinking an executive order trumps a law is a good way down the road to tyranny.

I also wonder why he thought he needed this power. What is he trying to hide?

This article from Time magazine's May 28, 2007 edition gives the best shortest account of this episode that I have come across. It can be viewed here at time.com and I reproduce it below:

In Washington divided government loosens lips; narratives that might never have been told play out as sworn testimony. Some witnesses encase their truths in leaden prose. Not so James Comey, a former Deputy Attorney General, who unspooled a vivid tale in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the night in March 2004 when he raced to the hospital to prevent two top White House aides from taking advantage of his critically ill boss, John Ashcroft, in a dispute over the Administration's secret domestic eavesdropping program. Comey was acting Attorney General while Ashcroft was incapacitated by pancreatitis. Like his boss, Comey had come to believe that President George W. Bush's surveillance program was illegal. The White House wanted it renewed. Comey refused. And so who turned up at Ashcroft's bedside with pen and paper in search of the Attorney General's signature? White House counsel Alberto Gonzales.

Summoning his strength, Ashcroft lifted his head from his pillow, affirmed his support for Comey and refused Gonzales' request. Facing the threat of a mass resignation by senior law-enforcement officials, including Ashcroft, Comey and FBI Director Robert Mueller, Bush finessed a compromise that ultimately addressed the Justice Department's concern about the surveillance programs. The weeks of recent hearings launched by Gonzales' firing of eight U.S. Attorneys have pried mountains of discovery from the Administration about the dismissals, but Comey's recounting of that night offered a glimpse into the drama of dissent that took place long before Gonzales met his current troubles. It's tempting to find comfort in the fact that off-camera, at least, these powerful men had been so passionately divided over issues of law and liberty. And Bush did ultimately yield to Ashcroft, Comey and Mueller. But just eight months later, the President chose Gonzales to be Ashcroft's successor. The lessons of that night--namely, that political fealty could go too far--went unheeded. Three years later, even Republicans are demanding that Gonzales resign. Said Comey in earlier testimony about the damage done: "I don't know [of] any way you can get the department's reputation back."

So Bush in his power grab wanted some one spineless in the post of Attorney General so he appointed Gonzales. I must also say that my opinion of Ashcroft has gone up. This seems to tie in with the U.S. attorney firings which I posted about here.

The recent May 21, 2007 edition of Time magazine has a great article entitled "Inside the Scandal at Justice" providing the latest information of the firings of respected U.S. attorneys for political reasons. The shortened (and thus incomplete) online article is here.

As with most things I read regarding politics the most signifcant items are rarely the headline items. In this case it was this paragraph.

"What Gonzalas' team wanted in U.S. Attorneys, according to an email sent by Sampson (a Gonzalas aid) sent to the White House, was "loyal Bushies". And thanks to a provision they quietly slipped into last years reauthorizationof the Patriot Act, they were able to put their candidates in without going through the customary route of Senate confirmation."

"When Gonzales testified last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a former U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island, produced documents and charts showing that under Bill Clinton, a policy was carried out that allowed only four people at the White House — the President, Vice President, White House counsel and deputy counsel — to discuss pending criminal cases with anyone at Justice and only with the top three officials of the department. Under Bush, that policy was loosened so that 417 White House staffers had that authority and could contact more than 30 people at Justice."

I am just extremely appalled by this assault on American liberty. The Bushies are attempting to use the justice system to enhance their own power, to protect their friends and punish their enemies. This is something that they cannot even use the cover of "fighting terrorism" to explain. One has to wonder what other laws they have corrupted for their own ends.

Of course this is all part of a larger national and international pattern by the Bushies. I have never thought of any administration as evil before but the Bushies are just outright evil.