Clintons Keep Records Closed, NCH Still Blames Bush II

The NCH website finally put up a story about the Clinton records brouhaha that came to the fore during the recent Democratic Presidential debate (I posted about it yesterday--and the AHA is still silent). Kudos to them for finally paying attention to something that's been brewing for a couple months, guys! But after reading the last two paragraphs, it's evident that the NCH is focused like a laser on the real baddie in all this:

This presidential debate only added to what has become a media firestorm over the issue of whether the Clinton’s are obstructing the release of her records or whether the Bush administration’s Executive Order 13233 is responsible for delays in the processing and release of documents at not just the Clinton library, but the Reagan and Bush libraries as well. An article in the Washington Post blamed both the Clinton’s and the Bush administration for the delays. And, a lengthy piece in Newsweek sharply criticized the Clinton’s alleging that they have been less than forthcoming in the release of their papers.

Unfortunately, the media coverage has ignored the fact that consideration of legislation (H.R. 1255) in the Senate to overturn Executive Order 13233 continues to be blocked by Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) at the behest of the White House who has threatened to veto the bill. (emphasis added)

Well, I guess we know who the NCH blames (surprise!). It seems as if the NCH finally--and reluctantly--brought up the possibility of the Clintons being responsible for withholding their own records only after the story got too big for them to ignore. Because the NCH has certainly been ignoring most of the media accounts critical of the Clintons.

In an earlier story, the NCH seemed more than happy to quote from a piece in which President Clinton blamed the Bush Adminstration for holding up the release of Clinton Administration records. But in this latest piece, they only allude to the NEWSWEEK piece critical of the Clintons and don't actually quote anything from it. Instead, they try to delegitimize the story as just part of a confusing "media firestorm" on their way to blaming the media for not covering "the real story" that the Executive Order is completely to blame for the holdup.

Now let me be clear here: I agree with repealing the Executive Order and allowing greater access more quickly (assuming that information in the records isn't critical to national security, of course) . What troubles me is the one-sided play the NCH is giving the Clinton story. In this particular case, repealing the Executive Order would remove some roadblocks to gaining access to the Clintons' records (and it would also remove the cover that the Clintons are currently hiding behind), but it also appears that the Clintons will still manage to keep the flow of information to a slow trickle--at least until after the 2008 Presidential election.

Then who will the NCH blame?

Clintons Keep Records Closed, AHA and NCH Still Blame Bush

I wonder if the AHA and the NCH are readying there complaints and resolutions concerning open access to Clinton family documents now that we know that it's the Clinton's--not the Bush Administration--that is holding up access.

The Clinton's have blamed the Bush Administration for holding up the release of Presidential documents and initially the media (and the AHA and NCH) bought their line. But maybe not anymore. Some Democrats (Sen. Obama, for instance) and the media are now asking questions.

When author Sally Bedell Smith was researching her new book about Bill and Hillary Clinton's White House years, she flew to Little Rock to visit the one place she thought could be an invaluable resource: the new William J. Clinton Presidential Library. Smith was hoping to inspect records that could shed light on what role the First Lady played in her husband's administration. But Smith quickly discovered the frustrations of dealing with a library critics call "Little Rock's Fort Knox."

An archivist explained to Smith that the release of materials was tightly controlled by the former president's longtime confidant Bruce Lindsey. Could she look at memos detailing the advice Hillary gave Bill during debates over welfare reform? Smith asked. No, the archivist said, those memos were "closed" to the public because they dealt with "policy" matters. What about any records that show what advice Bill gave his wife about her 2000 U.S. Senate campaign? Those, too, were closed, the archivist said, because they dealt with "political" matters. "He essentially told me I had no chance of getting anything," says Smith...

Bill Clinton has tried to cast blame for the backlog on the Bush White House...[b]ut White House spokesman Scott Stanzel tells NEWSWEEK the Bush White House has not blocked the release of any Clinton-era records, nor is it reviewing any....Ben Yarrow, a spokesman for Bill Clinton, says the former president was referring "in general" to a controversial 2001 Bush executive order—recently overturned, in part, by a federal judge—that authorized more extensive layers of review from both current and former presidents before papers are released. (Hillary's campaign didn't respond to requests for comment.)

But documents NEWSWEEK obtained under a FOIA request (made to the Archives in Washington, not the Clinton library) suggest that, while 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.

In the recent Democratic Presidential debate, Senator Clinton tried to dodge the issue:

The question of experience came up repeatedly, and Mrs. Clinton wasn't shy about citing her time as first lady as a main qualification to be President. She was less forthcoming about the records of her time in the White House, however. Mr. Russert asked: "In order to give the American people an opportunity to make a judgment about your experience, would you allow the National Archives to release the documents about your communications with the President, the advice you gave, because, as you well know, President Clinton has asked the National Archives not to do anything until 2012?"

Mrs. Clinton's initial response was to blame the Archives, but Mr. Russert asked whether she would lift her husband's "ban" on releasing their correspondence. "That's not my decision to make," was her reply. Apparently we are supposed to believe that the former President would refuse his wife's request to release those records if she asked. Even gentle Mr. Obama couldn't bite his tongue about that one, comparing the episode to the "secretive" Bush Administration.

If they wanted to, the AHA and NCH should know the Clinton's are the ones hiding things. But that doesn't seem to fit their narrative. Earlier this month, the NCH trumpeted the fact that President Clinton wants to open his records faster:

Former President Bill Clinton recently jumped into the political debate surrounding the disposition of presidential records. A story in the October 4, 2007, New York Sun reported that President Clinton recently asserted that the Bush administration was at fault for delaying the release of his records.

“I want to open my presidential records more rapidly than the law requires, and the current administration has slowed down the opening of my own records,” the former president was quoted as saying in the Sun article. “And I do think that I will have extra responsibilities for transparency should the American people elect Hillary president,” he went on to say. The White House had no reaction to President Clinton’s statement.

The White House denied the claim, but the NCH didn't see fit to publish the story about the denial on their website.

"The White House is not currently reviewing any Clinton presidential records because none are ripe for White House review," a spokesman for Mr. Bush, Trey Bohn, said yesterday. "All current requests for Clinton administration records are pending review by President Clinton's designated representative. The White House can take no action on any of the requests until the Clinton representative has completed its review of the records relevant to each request and reached a decision on either authorizing their release or withholding them."

Additionally, it seems the NCH is unaware that President Clinton has the ability to release his records at any time.

In 2003, Mr. Clinton announced that he planned to make public most of the confidential advice he received, even though federal law allows such advice to be kept secret for 12 years after a president leaves office.

When the Clinton Library opened in 2004, thousands of pages were available for review sooner than the law required. More than half a million pages selected by Mr. Clinton and archivists are currently open to research.

However, hardly any documents have been released in response to records requests from the public, which the library began accepting in January 2006. Archives officials have indicated that the presidential review process for all Clinton White House records released so far has averaged eight months. A spokeswoman for the archives, Miriam Kleiman, declined to discuss whether aides to Messrs. Clinton or Bush have been responsible for the delays.

The AHA and NCH have continually blamed the Bush Administration for withholding records. Now it has been revealed that President Clinton is responsible for blocking access to his Presidential records. He's within his legal rights to do so, but I would think that--within the spirit of open access--both the AHA and NCH would spill at least a smudge of ink on the fact that the Clinton's are putting up roadblocks.

Will the AHA Concern Itself with Clinton Stonewalling?

The AHA is (correctly) in a tizzy over Executive Order 13233, signed by President Bush, "which overturned an executive order issued by President Reagan and gave current and former presidents and vice presidents broad authority to withhold presidential records or delay their release indefinitely." As such, they are urging their members to push for the passage of the “Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007.” And that's exactly what they should be doing as an organization that is looking out for the practice of history--including historical research--in the United States.

However, the legislation will only make Presidential records available 12 years after the conclusion of that President's term, even if--by some twist--President Bush doesn't veto it. So, for instance, this legislation won't provide for the release of President Clinton's--or Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's--records during their White House tenure.

And while the AHA is embarked on this apparently quixotic quest, I'm left waiting for the hue and cry (or at least a feel-good resolution) from the AHA explaining that--on behalf of its FULL membership--they are calling for the end of the Clinton stonewalling:

...[T]o the dozens of reporters, historians, anti-Clinton types and eccentrics who have filed requests for documents from the library's archive, the [William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library] is Little Rock's Fort Knox.

The museum's 138-million-page presidential archive could play an important role in determining how Hillary Rodham Clinton's controversial White House past will affect her attempt to reclaim 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

"I haven't received any documents or even a note indicating that they're searching the records," said Jeff Gerth, a former New York Times reporter who requested a wide range of the first lady's files for an unauthorized Clinton biography he's working on.

With the 2008 election looming, researchers are eager to unearth undisclosed details from eight years marked by controversy, scandal and high-wire politics.

The Clintons' longtime personal lawyer, Bruce Lindsey, who helped defend the couple in the 1990s, has veto power over the release of the most sensitive documents. Attempts to contact Lindsey weren't successful.

Among the documents requested: almost all of Hillary Clinton's files as first lady, eight years' worth of her daily White House schedules, office diaries, day planners and telephone logs, according to a list of Freedom of Information Act requests obtained by Newsday.

Requests also have been filed for the internal correspondence of Clinton's ill-fated early-1990s health care reform task force (despite a court ruling saying its deliberations could remain private) and detailed files on Filegate, Travelgate, Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky, the pardons scandal and even back-and-forth about Clinton's 2000 Senate bid.

Sixteen months after the library started accepting applications, no major request for sensitive documents pertaining to Clinton's first-lady years have been released.

I guess the AHA is only enamored with taking a public stand and expressing the supposed will of its membership--well, the voting majority, anyway-when the ideological jones of that majority is being stroked.

To boil it down: the AHA is all for passing a conflated resolution that only tangentially has to do with the practice of history--ie; their (or should I now say "our"? Thanks for speaking for me...) Iraq War Resolution--even when said resolution will have no impact in the real world. Yet, even if having a real world impact doesn't matter--even if it is really about taking a stand and feeling good about it--then why not pass an equally toothless resolution that actually aligns with the mission of the AHA?

[The AHA's] object shall be the promotion of historical studies through the encouragement of research, teaching, and publication; the collection and preservation of historical documents and artifacts; the dissemination of historical records and information; the broadening of historical knowledge among the general public; and the pursuit of kindred activities in the interest of history.

So why not pass a resolution that calls for the Clinton's and their charges to open up the library to the public, including historians? Seems like that comports with the above, doesn't it?

Defining History and Adding A Warning Label

As most historians probably do, I have a habit of accumulating various articles that have piqued my interest over the years. In particular, I have a penchant for ripping book reviews out of magazines and journals. Well, every now and then I wade through the detritus. What often happens is that about 1/3 of the articles and reviews don't seem quite so germane or important as before. Of the rest, a few are digested and set aside for further reflection, but others warrant immediate action. That is what I'm doing now.

One such clipping was a book review of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom by Conrad Black, written by Forrest McDonald for the November 24, 2003 edition of National Review. I originally had kept the review because of McDonald's rather acerbic explanation of what makes a historian:

What historians do is make generalizations. They study and tke notes from the relevant documents and secondary literature. As they ingest the data, they digest them and reduce them to general propositions. When they sit down to write they select and report only that which makes cogent the story they are telling or the analysis they are offering. Two other kinds of folks who study the past go about their tasks differently. Antiquarians delight in learning details for their own sake and are likely to report them accurately and fully, if somewhat randomly. Authors of academic history characteristically record their research on note cards, arrange them in chronological order, and write by turning the cards over one by one. The results in either case are well-nigh unreadable.

Quite some time after reading McDonald's review, I picked up the book in the bargain bin of a local discount chain. (Mostly because it was big and thick and cheap and had to do with history, I must confess). I had forgotten what McDonald had written about Black's FDR:

Conrad Black's unconsionably long biography of Franklin Roosevelt shares almost none of the characteristics of genuine history and fall halfway between the work of antiquarians and academicians. Like them, he includes every detail, however irrelevant, though he is not always accurate and sometimes arranges his note cards out of sequence.

I have now tucked McDonald's review inside the book as a "warning label." I wonder if this might not be a good practice to follow in general? Does anyone else do such a thing? Seems like keeping a critique of a book that one might fall in love with may be a good hedge against literary or historical cupidity.

Google Keeps Helping Independent Scholars

On the heels of putting downloadable books on line, Google has announced that they will now make newspaper archives searchable and accessible. So what if many of the articles are subscription($) only, it is a resource that those of us outside of the academy--and with no access to a university library--have longed for.