Is Larry Craig gay? Last night, Senator Clinton said that release of White House papers detailing her past record - especially her Cheney-like refusal to allow any public daylight into her healthcare task force - was subject solely to bureaucratic delays. Her former co-president, Bill Clinton, also recently said that he wanted total transparency with respect to these papers. Mike Isikoff finds - surprise! - that these statements are only "true" in the sense that anything the Clintons say is "true." Money quote:
[W]hile publicly saying he wants to ease restrictions on his records, Clinton has given the Archives private instructions to tightly control the disclosure of chunks of his archive. Among the document categories Clinton asked the Archives to "consider for withholding" in a November 2002 letter: "confidential communications" involving foreign-policy issues, "sensitive policy, personal or political" matters and "legal issues and advice" including all matters involving investigations by Congress, the Justice Department and independent counsels (a category that would cover, among other matters, Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky and the pardons of Marc Rich and others). Another restriction: "communications directly between the President and First Lady, and their families, unless routine in nature."
Archives officials say Clinton is within his legal rights. But other Archives records NEWSWEEK reviewed show Clinton's directives, while similar, also go beyond restrictions placed by predecessors Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, neither of whom put any controls over the papers of their wives.
You can download Bill Clinton's letter here. You want to turn the page on Cheney's and Bush's secrecy and unchecked executive power? Don't vote the Clintons back into the White House.