Linkmeister

Gimme them papers, yo!

Way back in November of 2001 I was griping about an Executive Order setting new guidelines for historians and their access to Presidential papers. Finally, nearly six years later, the House has introduced legislation attempting to reverse that order.

Bush issued the order after the White House held up the release of 68,000 pages of Ronald Reagan Presidential Library documents in 2001. Under the previous system, the president, former presidents or designees had 30 days to review documents and lodge objections. Bush added reviews by the families of former presidents to the process, and removed the 30-day deadline. He also broadened the rules to encompass vice presidential papers.

The head of the National Security Archive (private, not governmental) says waiting time for Reagan's papers has gone from 18 months pre-Order to 6 years today.

Some professional archivists and historians are urging Southern Methodist University to reject Bush's desire to locate his Presidential library there unless the Order is overturned.

Unless the order is overturned, scholars said Thursday, Bush's library - expected to be built at Southern Methodist University - may be deprived of much of the substance that would make it a meaningful source of information.

Archivists and historians are urging SMU to reject the Bush library unless the administration changes its policy. University officials say procedures regarding disclosure of presidential papers should be left to policymakers.

"We have to ask ourselves whether a presidential library existing under this order, at SMU or wherever it ends up, is but an empty shell of what such a library should be," Steven Hensen of the Society of American Archivists told lawmakers at a hearing of a House oversight committee.

Good. It took a House controlled by Democrats to set this in motion. The President has no right to bury papers from his Administration in perpetuity; the documents don't belong to him, they belong to the office and thus to the American people. Let's hope the bill succeeds.

Posted by Linkmeister at March 2, 2007 10:16 AM | TrackBack