Aware the White House was considering such a new policy, members of Congress have raised concerns that it will hinder lawmakers from giving proper oversight to federal prosecutions, noting scandals in the past would never have been exposed if Congress had been kept from sensitive documents.
If members of Congress don't like it, that tell's you something. If having access to these documents allowed exposure of scandals by Congress, why do scandals have to be exposed by everyone else but Congress? And why when Congress has full access to these scandals, do they go stick their head in the sand ??????
I have a feeling the words "giving proper oversight" means deciding what they want to keep buried to cover their own asses!
I'm beginning to think that what's really going on here is that the President is trying to restore some of the independence of the Executive Branch that has been slowly whittled away over the past few decades. Congress continues to try to maintain "oversight" over the Executive branch, yet without any appreciable parallel going the other direction.
People are complaining a lot about the President trying to take too much power, but the reality is, Congress is the branch of government, IMO, that has been on the road to taking too much power.
I think this is part of President Bush's promise to restore honor and dignity to the White House--part of that is restoring some of the power of the Executive branch, particularly with regard to restoring some of its independence from Congress. The different branches of government need to be balanced among the three or else they don't function the way they were meant to.
The other thing is, compared to how things like this have been handled in the past, invoking "Executive Privilege" is a very straightforward and honest way of handling the issue. In the past, if a President wanted to hide something, the temptation was to lie or to coverup. This way, it's very clear what the President is doing, he's being very upfront about it, rather than attempting to cover something up.
People complain a lot about President Bush's secrecy, but the reality is, we know a lot about what he's doing--moreso than I've ever seen in a President before. He may be trying to prevent certain things from being released, but the whole world knows what he's trying to do.
-penny
Here is the reason I believe Bush is doing this for the right reason and not to misuse it.
Aware the White House was considering such a new policy, members of Congress have raised concerns that it will hinder lawmakers from giving proper oversight to federal prosecutions, noting scandals in the past would never have been exposed if Congress had been kept from sensitive documents.
If members of Congress don't like it, that tell's you something. If having access to these documents allowed exposure of scandals by Congress, why do scandals have to be exposed by everyone else but Congress? And why when Congress has full access to these scandals, do they go stick their head in the sand ??????
I have a feeling the words "giving proper oversight" means deciding what they want to keep buried to cover their own asses!