According to Trent Duffy, the WH Deputy Press Secretary, "The White House and the administration are cooperating with both the House and Senate...but we have also maintained the president's ability to get advice and have conversations with his top advisers that remain confidential."
That argument is getting old. It was used during the 9/11 committee investigation to try to prevent Condi Rice and others from testifying; it was used in the Plame affair; it was used by Dick Cheney to try prevent release of information about the energy task force committee, and it is now being used in the torture scandal and the Katrina investigation. It will no doubt be used again.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, a member of the Senate committee that is investigating the government response to Katrina, says that the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services ''have essentially ignored our document requests for months." The Department of Health and Human Services has not even allowed testimony from those in their department. As for the response of the department of Homeland Security, their response was ''too little, too late."
Sen. Susan Collins, the committee's Republican chair, criticized the lack of Homeland Security cooperation. ''We are entitled to know if someone from the Department of Homeland Security calls someone at the White House during this whole crisis period," Collins said. ''So I think the White House has gone too far in restricting basic information about who called whom on what day." She also says she can respect the WH's executive privilege, which allows the administration to get advice from Bush's aides.
I want to know what the administration's definition of advice is. According to The Free Dictionary it is:
1. Opinion about what could or should be done about a situation or problem; counsel.
2. Information communicated; news. Often used in the plural: advises from an ambassador.
The Bush administration seems very reluctant to release the source of any "advice" which makes me wonder if they have another definition which is along the lines of:
1. Opinion about what could or should be done to further our own interests or cover our collective ass; all such "opinions" are considered secret and are to be withheld everyone not a member of our double super-secret cabal.
2. Information nobody else can have because it would help the Enemies of Freedom.
I can certainly understand the need for confidentiality when the safety and security of the nation is at stake. I think every can. But this administration takes the need for confidentiality to new levels and given the amount of malfeasance the administration is accused of (in just about every aspect of its operation, it seems) such reluctance to be open about advice given comes across as being overly cautionous at best, and paranoid at worst. Their reluctance, on so many fronts, to be candid about advice given makes it seem as if they feel they have hide the reasons for doing what they do because they know it's wrong and don't want to be found out.
This all brings to mind the definition Ambrose Bierce gave in The Devil's Dictionary:
Advice: n. to seek another's approval of a course already decided upon.
