Open Up

I didn't see this coming:

A federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to release information about who visited Vice President Dick Cheney's office and personal residence, an order that could spark a late election-season debate over lobbyists' White House access.

While researching the access lobbyists and others had on the White House, The Washington Post asked in June for two years of White House visitor logs. The Secret Service refused to process the request, which government attorneys called "a fishing expedition into the most sensitive details of the vice presidency."

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina said Wednesday that, by the end of next week, the Secret Service must produce the records or at least identity them and justify why they are being withheld.

The Secret Service can still try to withhold the records but, in a written ruling Thursday, Urbina questioned the agency's primary argument — that the logs are protected by Cheney's right to executive privilege.

They'll fight tooth and nail for these to be withheld until after the election, and then after that. Cheney doesn't even publish his own schedule. He wants to keep everything he does secret, probably beyond all reason. And so far, the Congress has just gone along to get along.

Courts are really the only hope to get some accountability on this government without a Democratic Congress. And considering who's been appointing judges for 20 out of the last 28 years, that's why taking Congress back is so vital.