Opinion: So, what is Clinton hiding?
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He avoided a direct swipe at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but Sen. Barack Obama made plain today at a campaign appearance in Atlantic, Iowa, that the 2 million pages of records covering her eight years as first lady should be opened up so that the public can make a judgment about her White House years.
As The Times’ Peter Nicholas so fully reported the other day, the Clinton records are now locked away in her husband’s presidential library in Little Rock, Ark. No one can see them now. Not average citizens. Not inquiring reporters. Not political opponents, which is fine with candidate Clinton.
There are nearly 2 million pages of documents sitting there, unmined--calendars, appointment logs, memos. It’s a treasure trove of information that would reveal much about what the first lady was actually doing during her husband’s presidency, which she cites every day as the invaluable experience she gathered that best qualifies her now to become the next Commander in Chief. Just take her word for it.
Even in some healthcare documents, which Bill Clinton urged be speedily prepared for release, at least 1,000 pages involving Hillary Clinton’s work have been censored by archive staff because, they say, it contains confidential advice and must be kept secret under the Presidential Records Act.
And federal archivists say they probably won’t get around to releasing the bulk of the Hillary Clinton’s documents until after the 2008 presidential election. Now, isn’t that a convenient coincidence?
Archivists sorting the Clinton era records said they were simply so short-staffed and inundated with...
requests from the public for other information. They say it might take years before Hillary Clinton’s records are made public.
Former President Clinton could ask the archivists to process his wife’s records more quickly, but he’s so busy making speeches for $179,000 a pop he has had no time. So no such request has been made, according to the National Archives and Records Administration.
Perhaps coincidentally, a group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility released an announcement today saying that Democrat Gov. Bill Richardson is the only presidential candidate to sign its ‘Public Service Pledge,’ a promise to administer an open government if elected, including ‘keeping vital documents in the public domain.’
According to the group’s news release, John Edwards sent a supportive but equivocating letter and Mike Huckabee said no ‘at this time.’ All the others, including Clinton and Obama, have yet to be heard from.
‘Generally speaking,’ Obama said at a news conference today, ‘the American people have the right to know about the public business of those who are aspiring to the highest office in the land. I don’t know what’s in those library archives, but that’s the principle we’re going to try and follow in the course of our campaign.’’
Seems like that’s the principle of openness that’s supposed to be followed by this entire society.
--Andrew Malcolm