Cheney Need Not Release Records

Re “Court Hands Cheney a Win on Disclosures,” Dec. 10: Like many Californians, I was looking forward to finding out the details of Vice President Dick Cheney’s meetings on energy policy. The General Accounting Office had the initiative to compel Cheney to turn over the minutes of these meetings, and it looked as if we were all going to learn how the federal government was involved in the energy deregulation fiasco that California continues to pay for.

Now, in the eleventh hour, after Cheney missed his deadline to turn over the documents to the GAO, a Bush-appointed judge steps in and rules that the GAO has no authority to force the executive branch to release any information. Cheney can breathe a sigh of relief, for now it may never be proved just how cozy the Bush administration is with big business. We’ve seen plenty of other examples of this, and when corporations benefit, it’s often the average consumer who pays the price.

John Wolfenden

Los Angeles

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Re “Cheney Wins, Public Loses,” editorial, Dec. 11: It’s also the judges, stupid. Connect these dots: Judge John D. Bates, last year’s Bush nominee to the bench, also served as deputy independent counsel on the Whitewater investigation with Ken Starr. The deputy solicitor general arguing for Cheney is Paul Clement, who worked for Justice Antonin Scalia and served as law clerk to Judge Laurence Silberman, who, according to David Brock, was the alleged go-between for Ted Olson and Starr on Whitewater. We win or lose? You do the math.

Libby Breen

Altadena