Power

I look forward to howls of Republican outrage over this:

The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.

Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.

CREW says it will file a lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.

You know, all along during arguments with wingnuts they kept assuming this was all Bush Derangement Syndrome, that the only reason anybody wanted to know anything was to mess with Bush. Well, now it's turned back around, because what we said then is coming true: these weren't just powers we didn't want Bush to have. They're powers we didn't want ANYBODY to have. Too bad it's going to take a Democrat screwing this up to get 'em on board with that idea.

A.

Comments

[Dan]

Sorry for the out-of-thread blogwhoring (not the hose!!!) but here's what I wrote about that on Sunday:

I’ve said before that this is likely not a restoration of principles as much as a political calculation. The right is out of power, so time to rail against it. When the Republicans get back in they’ll be all Keep America Safe again, so let’s trim back as much as we can until then. Make hay while the sun shines.

Sticking to principle with these folks feels like fighting with one arm tied behind your back, but what are you going to do?

[pansypoo]

i know obama is trying hard to keep investigations of georgee at least til he gets the hard stuff done, but...OK, why are they putting another pot on obama's full stove top?

[Spocko]

If they lose this arguement they can they go back and get the Bush Cheney records.

[pansypoo]

make em sweat