Shenanigans!

Lest you find yourself confused as to the status of the prosecutor firings scandal and Bush’s claims of executive privilege, I have three required pieces of reading for you that should clear everything up. Start with Bruce Fein's piece in Slate yesterday. Or at least read this:

Executive privilege is a concoction, then, to protect secrecy for the sake of secret government, while transparency is the rule of enlightened democracies to insure political accountability and to deter folly or wrongdoing. Still, let's assume for a moment that executive privilege is in fact needed to promote presidential candor. The privilege still would not justify silencing presidential aides like Ms. Taylor or John Dean, who are eager to disclose their communications. Candor is not threatened by a rule that entitles each presidential communicant to decide for him- or herself whether to speak publicly or not.

As the article goes on to point out, This is not a matter of a principle for Bush, this is all simply a tactic to further lead our country down a darkened corridor of corruption and dictatorship. He is expressly attempting to not simply minimize, but to entirely eliminate congress’ constitutional duty to provide oversight to the executive branch.

Follow that up with a taste of Dahlia who explains that Sara Taylor’s song and dance at the hearing yesterday in which she decided that everything good about Bush is not covered by privilege and everything bad is, was actually worse (if your interests lie in a free and open government not ruled by a corrupt monarch) than if she had not shown up at all (like Bush’s dim-witted BFF Harriet).

And finally a primer in executive privilege from Salon where you find out the new extremes to which the Bush administration is taking us.

You can’t prove a cover up if you can’t find the crime. But like the man said about pornography, I recognize it when I see it. Or as the Patriot Act fans in the house are fond of saying - if you don’t have anything to hide, then why can’t we take a look?