Open thread 12/24

Thread_3

35 Comments

  1. JWink
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 1:37 am | Permalink

    Here we are on Christmas eve day, one of our special traditional days here in America that seems to bring echoes of heavenly choirs, heavenly orchestras, heavenly voices from some unseen source. So slow down a bit. Enjoy the blanket of snow over Kansas. Wish your long time friends and even strangers a Merry Christmas and pray for a better year arriving soon in 2008.

  2. Herbert West III
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 1:46 am | Permalink

    Thanks: JWink, I wont cloud this Holiday with the reality that some choose to walk from the glory of Immortality thru the gift of Christ from the Heart of God. God Bless and thanks to GOD for Jesus, our brother. Happy Birthday Eve to him and I will see you someday. I will try to remember you more often thru out the years days. Your brother, Herbert West III, west.herb@yahoo.com , Amen.

  3. XXX
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 4:39 am | Permalink

    Illegal immigrants in Arizona, frustrated with a flagging economy and tough new legislation cracking down on their employers, are returning to their home countries or trying their luck in other states.http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/22/immigrants.leave.ap/index.html

    We need to take a look at this kind of legislation. As other states crack down on illegals, Kansas becomes a magnet for these creeps.

    As for illegals who are returning to their home countries because it’s getting hard for them to break the law here, I say good riddance, don’t let the door hit your sorry a$$.

  4. XXX
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 4:45 am | Permalink

    A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/washington/23habeas.html?em&ex=1198558800&en=4eae300b9fba9c53&ei=5087

    Sound familiar?

  5. XXX
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 4:50 am | Permalink

    Mildred Otis won’t caucus for Barack Obama for president largely for one reason: She wants to save his life.

    Otis, 87, remembers America’s violent civil rights movement 40 years ago when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

    And, having lived through those events, the Des Moines woman and others fear that Obama’s nomination could end in tragedy. “I think there’s a lot of people not ready for an African-American to be a president,” said Otis, a black woman.http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071222/NEWS09/712220338/1001/NEWS

    “I think there’s a lot of people not ready for an African-American to be a president,”

    They would be conservatives.

  6. stumper
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 4:53 am | Permalink

    I’ll be damned: Hoover . . . the original feminazi.

  7. XXX
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 4:56 am | Permalink

    A restaurateur in Lower Saxony has refused to be deterred by the state’s new ban on smoking in bars and restaurants: He has sawed three holes in the wall so patrons can smoke “outside.”http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,524542,00.html

    And Wichita wants a smoking ban. Check the link; it comes with pics.

  8. poster
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 7:17 am | Permalink

    Congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul warns of ’soft fascism’

    Nick Langewis and David EdwardsPublished: Sunday December 23, 2007

    “It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said, he says: ‘When fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.’”Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) argues to Meet the Press’ Tim Russert that in the statement above, he is not calling presidential contender and Republican competitor Mike Huckabee a fascist, but what could be the image of a cross planted in a recently released Huckabee campaign ad brought the quote to his mind.

    Paul does, however, believe that the United States has adopted fascist leanings. Changes in the country’s tone, says the Congressman, such as the PATRIOT Act, questioning dissenters’ patriotism during the war, and civil liberties abuses indicate corporatism, or “soft fascism,” namely a stronghold by the military-industrial complex on society.

    “So,” Russert follows up, “you think we’re close to fascism?”

    Mentioning a documentary entitled “Freedom to Fascism,” Paul responds, “We’re not moving toward Hitler-type fascism, but we’re moving toward a softer fascism: Loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business. So you have the military-industrial complex, you have the medical-industrial complex, you have the financial industry, you have the communications industry. They go to Washington and spend hundreds of millions of dollars.”

    “That’s where the control is,” says the Congressman. “I call that a soft form of fascism — something that’s very dangerous.”

    This portion of NBC’s Meet the Press, broadcast on December 23, 2007, is available for viewing below.

    http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Ron_Paul_warns_Tim_Russert_of_1223.html

  9. Posted December 24, 2007 at 7:33 am | Permalink

    XXX,

    The article didn’t mention ‘who she feared’. Threats are common to national campaigns, but are actually rare.

    What the article does say is that there are Democrats who are in fear for their candidate. While you will never be able to say what percentage of Democrats are the ‘fearful’ type, you can say that the reporter/newspaper thought enough of it to publish a story.

    So you are left with, what are the general leanings of the paper/reporter? Guess which political party most are registered with?

  10. Posted December 24, 2007 at 7:53 am | Permalink

    One of India’s leading geologists, B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the Geological Society of India, expressed climate skepticism in 2007.

    “There is some evidence to show that our planet Earth is becoming warmer and that human action is probably partly responsible, especially in the matter of greenhouse gas emissions. What is in doubt, however, is whether the steps that are proposed to be taken to reduce carbon emission will really bring down the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere and whether such attempts, even carried out on a global scale, will produce the desired effect,” Radhakrishna wrote in an August 23, 2007 essay. “We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles. We appear to be now only in the middle of an interglacial cycle showing a trend toward warming as warming and cooling are global and have occurred on such a scale when humans had not appeared on the planet. If we read geology correctly, the earth we live on is not dead but is dynamic and is continuously changing. The causes of these changes are cosmogenic and nothing we are able to do is likely to halt or reverse such processes,” he explained. “Warming of the climate, melting of glaciers, rise in sea levels and other marked changes in climate – these do not pose immediate threats and there is besides, no way of controlling such changes even if we want to. Exercises at mitigation of these likely disasters are, however, possible and mankind, in all likelihood, will gradually adjust itself to the changed conditions. This has happened before; men and animals have moved to greener pastures and adapted themselves to the changed situations,” he added.

    http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/RADHAKRISHNA-CCNet2007.htm

  11. writerdog
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 9:17 am | Permalink

    Clinton E. Curtis, ex-programmer tells all duri… ( \l “”)
    Added: August 02, 2006
    Clinton E. Curtis, ex-programmer tells all during a Congressional hearing on voting fraud. In October 2000, Curtis was asked by Tom Feeney (R), then Speaker of the House in Florida, to write a computer program that would render electronic voting fraud undetectable. Curtis did just that

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky-YXvxYbck

    OH boy…. well this now seems as pointless as finding out who shot J.R. Ewing! Even if you could absolutely proof the 2000 election was fixed. What ya going to do now? “Come on Mr. Peabody lets jump in the way-back machine!”.

  12. Posted December 24, 2007 at 9:23 am | Permalink

    There is no voter fraud according to Democrats, dog – it’s a Republican scare tactic.

  13. Susan
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 9:52 am | Permalink

    They are going to ban smoking, then tax soda. Where is the line?

  14. poster
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 10:11 am | Permalink

    So Sen. James “global warming is a hoax” Inhofe (R-OK) issues a report in which he claims:

    Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming.

    “Padded” would be an extremely generous description of this list of “prominent scientists.” Some would use the word “laughable” (though not the N.Y. Times‘ Andy Revkin, see below). For instance, since when have economists, who are pervasive on this list, become scientists, and why should we care what they think about climate science?

    I’m not certain a dozen on the list would qualify as “prominent scientists,” and many of those, like Freeman Dyson — a theoretical physicist — have no expertise in climate science whatsoever. I have previously debunked his spurious and uninformed claims, although I’m not sure why one has to debunk someone who seriously pushed the idea of creating a rocket ship powered by detonating nuclear bombs! Seriously.

    Even Ray Kurzweil, not a scientist but a brilliant inventor, is on the list. Why? Because he apparently told CNN and the Washington Post:

    These slides that Gore puts up are ludicrous, they don’t account for anything like the technological progress we’re going to experience…. None of the global warming discussions mention the word ‘nanotechnology. Yet nanotechnology will eliminate the need for fossil fuels within 20 years…. I think global warming is real but it has been modest thus far – 1 degree f. in 100 years. It would be concern if that continued or accelerated for a long period of time, but that’s not going to happen.

    And people say I’m a techno-optimist. So Kurzweil actually believes in climate science — rather than the reverse, as Inhofe claims — but thinks catastrophic global warming won’t happen because of a techno-fix that stops emissions. If wishes were horses … everyone would get trampled to death. In the real world, energy breakthroughs are very rare, as we’ve seen, and it’s even rarer when they make a difference in under several decades.

    Then we have the likes of this from Inhofe’s list:

    CBS Chicago affiliate Chief Meteorologist Steve Baskerville expressed skepticism that there is a “consensus” about mankind’s role in global warming.

    Wow, a TV weatherman expressed skepticism. If only the IPCC had been told of this in time, they could have scrapped their entire report. Seriously, Wikipedia says “Baskerville is an alumnus of Temple University and holds a Certificate in Broadcast Meteorology from Mississippi State University.” I guess Inhofe has a pretty low bar for “prominent scientists” — but then again he once had science fiction writer Michael Crichton testify at a hearing on climate science.

    I don’t mean to single out Baskerville. Inhofe has a lot of meteorologists on his list, including Weather Channel Founder John Coleman. I have previously explained why Coleman doesn’t know what he is talking about on climate, and why meteorologists in general have no inherent credibility on climatology. In any case, they obviously are NOT prominent scientists.

    Then we have people like French geomagnetism (!) scientist Vincent Courtillot, geophysicist Louis Le Mouël, geophysicist Claude Allègre, geomagnetism (!!) scientist Frederic Fluteau, geomagnetism (!!!) scientist Yves Gallet, and scientist Agnes Genevey — whose “research” on global warming is brutally picked apart by RealClimate here and especially here (and again here by other scientists), who together “expose a pattern of suspicious errors and omissions that pervades” their work.

    So, yes, the Inhofe list is utterly ignorable compared to either the IPCC report or the Bali declaration by actual prominent climate scientists. The notion it is relevant to the climate debate is laughable, as even a cursuory examination makes clear. And yet in an article unhelpfully titled, “Climate Consensus ‘Busted’?” the NYT’s Andy Revkin amazingly writes of it:

    The perennial tug of war over what average people should think and do about human-caused global warming has just experienced another big yank, this time from those saying actions to cut greenhouse gases are a costly waste of time.

    Big yank? More like Inhofe is letting go of the rope. Revkin continues

    But when you sift through the studies, what emerges (to me at any rate) is not so much the shattering of a consensus as a portrait of one corner of the absolutely normal, and combative, arena in which scientific ideas emerge and either thrive or fade.

    What does Inhofe’s list have to do at all with the normal scientific process? What do meteorologists and economists have to do with the normal process of climate science? Should scientists really be influenced at all by one inventor’s wild claim that nanotechnology will eliminate fossil fuels in 20 years. Or by a contrived and mistake-riddled study by geomagnetists?

    One final (depressing) note: How effective is Inhofe’s media outreach compared to that of the entire community of climate scientists? Well, according to technorati, as of today, Friday the 21st, the IPCC Synthesis report has had 278 blog reactions since its release November 17, whereas Inhofe’s “report,” issued just yesterday (Thursday), has already had over 300 blog reactions.

    We have a long way to go if we’re going to triumph over the disinformation and preserve the health and well-being of the next 50 generations. Let’s all redouble our efforts in the new year.

    UPDATE: You can find some more excellent debunking posts here and here and here.

    http://climateprogress.org/2007/12/21/debunking-inhofe-report-over-400-prominent-scientists-disputed-man-made-global-warming-claims-in-2007-andy-revkin/

  15. writerdog
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 10:47 am | Permalink

    Kansas to be honest at this point I could not care less if the 2000 vote was fixed or not. I voted for G.W. in 2000. I just find it ironic that if there were such admissions back then, It will still be a hot topic today. And this was posted in August of 2006. I mean really what good would that do now? What we can roll back the last seven years and Gore can be President when 9-11 happens? The only difference I could see would be Iraq would not have happen which would be good. But we need to remember and move on, make sure 08 is not the same as 2000. What the heck am I talking about, of course it will be! Listening to the current crop of candidates it sound like they are just reading off of one of G.W. old stump speeches. The only thing that will change is we will not have to see that stupid smirk anymore. The only one I see that is different is Ron Paul and even if he was elected. He would still be fighting the new/old guard in Congress. Are there any in the Congress or Senate that would support him? He is not Bush and would jus bulldog his way through, he would have no really allies. Crap pick up a stone and throw it through the house doors, it would not matter whether you hit a Democrat or a Republican they are all the same and none standing up for this country.

    The Republicans are not willing to do what it takes to actually fix Iraq so we can say that we have corrected the worst mistake this country has ever made. The Democrats do not want to do what it takes because then Bush would be off the hook. Mean while every U.S. soldier there is wearing a target instead of an U.S. flag on his uniform. They are not being allowed to win, just maintain for another day. Sorry be the surge is a fooking joke, gee who would not have thought that more cops on the street would drive the criminals underground? The only good thing that happened is that Al-Qaeda like the morons have always done in the entire history of the Islamic extremist movement. Piss off the people they were trying to convert and now the Sunnis had enough of them. That has always been the surest way to combat them was let them be themselves! Kick back and the people in the middle east finally have enough of them and kick them out.
    Their piss ants and that is always what they have been, they do not have a huge army to fight with. So they shoot their wad and either run back under rocks or get the crap beaten out of them. Then run back under a rock!

    That was until Iraq, so now we are running around pissing more people off that will side with them. While they kick back in Afghanistan or Pakistan sipping fooking umbrella drinks and waving for the camera.So yeah what good does it do to keep saying the 2000 election was fix if you can not fix it now?
    LIKE I said, we would have still been attacked on 9-11 the nuts already had that going and our head was so far up our anises with gloating over impeaching Clinton, the partisan bickering and the FBI and CIA having their feeling hurt if they thought either one was wanting to play on their play ground. There were plenty of indicators and everyone but a few were ignoring them. Hell myself, I was so happy that Clinton was getting his member caught in his fly. That I was not even paying any real attention to the bombings and the articles about the terrorist threat. Going back and actually reading them is an eye opener, but I totally missed them in amongst all the crap about Clinton’s bent Johnson! We could have put them down along time ago, worked with other countries to hunt them down. See even in the Middle east the rulers there did not want them around either. They are as big a threat to them as they are to us. Actually more as most of extremists are more interested in converting their own countries then killing us. But they do not have any better luck there than they would here. The world was on our side after 9-11, other countries were tripping over themselves to help us get rid of Al-Qaeda. They were a threat to them too, most though just did not want their help shown out in the open. The nuts were there and until we would have taken care of them they would retaliate. Ahh Sorry about the rant but it get me that we have such current problems and people get so anally fixated on old stuff that can not be fixed. They are happier about gripping about the things that happen last year that can not be fixed Then raising hell about how we can fix today. I guess that goes for me too!

  16. Posted December 24, 2007 at 11:41 am | Permalink

    “There is some evidence to show that our planet Earth is becoming warmer and that human action is probably partly responsible, especially in the matter of greenhouse gas emissions.
    What is in doubt, however, is whether the steps that are proposed to be taken to reduce carbon emission will really bring down the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere and whether such attempts, even carried out on a global scale, will produce the desired effect,” Radhakrishna wrote in an August 23, 2007 essay.”

    Posted by: Hank | December 24, 2007 at 07:53 AM

    Hank definitely prefers to believe “essays”, instead of the overwhelming peer-reviewed climate science.

    Hank, what does he mean by “partly responsible”? How did he determine the amount? Using science, or by ignoring science?

    And the “desired effect” logic(sic) is backwards. It’s like arguing that alcoholics may not recover their health if they stop drinking, so they should not try to stop.

    Hank… please explain how natural climate changes in the past PREVENTS humans from causing climate change today.

    Meteor strikes in the past put debris into the atmosphere, and caused climate change.

    Does that mean that if humans have a large nuclear war, and put huge amounts of debris into the atmosphere, there will be NO climate change? NO “nuclear winter”?

  17. Max
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 12:13 pm | Permalink

    “I think there’s a lot of people not ready for an African-American to be a president,”

    They would be conservatives.

    Posted by: XXX | December 24, 2007 at 04:50 AM
    ——————————————————————–

    XXX, your racist statement has no founding in fact.

    Look at which political party voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for example. Look at the Liberal Democrat leaders who tried to block the bill.

    And look at Liberal Socialist Democrat Senator Robert Byrd.

    Byrd: “participated in the KKK during World War II, holding the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops. He did not serve in the military during the war, working instead as a welder in a Baltimore, Maryland shipyard, where he helped build warships.”

    Byrd was TWICE the Democrat Senate Majority leader. Oh, and he’s still in office, KKK Byrd the senior Democrat in the Senate!

    CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964
    The Senate version:

    Democratic Party: 46-22 (68%-32%)
    Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)
    The Senate version, voted on by the House:

    Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
    Republican Party: 136-35 (80%-20%)

  18. Steven Davis
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 12:40 pm | Permalink

    Richard Cheney:”Ronald Reagan showed us, deficits don’t matter.”

    Maybe to a point, uncle Dick:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/23/AR2007122302441.html?hpid=topnews

  19. Ben
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 1:27 pm | Permalink

    Listening to some REAL Christmas music – on NPR. Not the “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” garbage – but “Deck the Halls”; “Silent Night”; “Drummer Boy” etc etc etc.

    And so, to all of the Christians here I wish a very Merry and Blesses Christmas. And, to others I wish Happy Holidays, Joyous Solstice (a couple days late), Happy Hannuchah, and, of copurse, Happy New Years!

  20. XXX
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 1:29 pm | Permalink

    XXX, your racist statement has no founding in fact.Posted by: Max | December 24, 2007 at 12:13 PM

    Oh don’t you wish, Max. You gotta go back 40 years for numbers to support your silly claim.

    Let’s talk about the here and now. What percentage of blacks vote republican? There’s a reason. It’s because the GOP is a racist organization. They only support rich white men.

    Max, tell me how many black republican Senators there are.

    Republicans are racist and don’t have the stones to admit it.

  21. XXX
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 1:32 pm | Permalink

    A very Merry Christmas to all, and to those who don’t accept Jesus as our Saviour, Happy Holidays.

    Mrs XXX and I are off to spend Christmas with family. See you all in a couple of days.

    XXX

  22. Ben
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 1:35 pm | Permalink

    XXX – I’ll add another element to your observation. Having grown up in the old Jim Crow South I remember all of that well. And many of those old “Southern Democrats” who voted against Civil Rights changed party and have become the core of today’s GOP.

    It’s sort of funny – back then I was a Republican because that was the party of change and reform in Dixie.

  23. Max
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 1:38 pm | Permalink

    A lie, no matter how many times you repeat it XXX, is still a lie.

  24. Posted December 24, 2007 at 4:24 pm | Permalink

    It’s sort of funny – back then I was a Republican because that was the party of change and reform in Dixie.

    Posted by: Ben | December 24, 2007 at 01:35 PM

    Oh, let’s see then Ben, according to XXX…since you were a Republican, you are a racist.

    You just fled the south and the party to disguise any racist activities you might have done?

    Ben, could you call up the Mayor of Wichita and advise him that he is a racist because XXX said so.

    :)

  25. Ben
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 4:41 pm | Permalink

    kansas – I think you are misinterpreting XXX’s comments. The GOP TODAY reflects a very different thing than it did back then. In fact, with the infusion of all those old Dixiecrats it took in the worst elements of the old Southern Democratic Party.

    Remember, I am talking about 40-50 years ago.

  26. Posted December 24, 2007 at 4:48 pm | Permalink

    kansas – I think you are misinterpreting XXX’s comments. The GOP TODAY reflects a very different thing than it did back then. In fact, with the infusion of all those old Dixiecrats it took in the worst elements of the old Southern Democratic Party.

    Remember, I am talking about 40-50 years ago.

    Posted by: Ben | December 24, 2007 at 04:41 PM

    ==========================No, I don’t think so Ben. There is only one way anyone can interpret the following XXX statement.==========================”Republicans are racist and don’t have the stones to admit it.”

    Posted by: XXX | December 24, 2007 at 01:29 PM

  27. Ben
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 6:41 pm | Permalink

    Yes kansas, there is only one way to interpret it. He is obviously referring to the Republic Party of TODAY – NOT the Republican Party of a half-century ago or that of Lincoln. So, since I was a Republican nearly a half-century ago we are looking at vastly different things.

    In fact; the Jim Crow Democrats that I rejected back then subsequently became Republics and formed the core of the Republic Party of TODAY.

  28. Posted December 24, 2007 at 6:45 pm | Permalink

    Yes kansas, there is only one way to interpret it. He is obviously referring to the Republic Party of TODAY – NOT the Republican Party of a half-century ago or that of Lincoln. So, since I was a Republican nearly a half-century ago we are looking at vastly different things.

    In fact; the Jim Crow Democrats that I rejected back then subsequently became Republics and formed the core of the Republic Party of TODAY.

    Posted by: Ben | December 24, 2007 at 06:41 PM

    So both XXX and you are calling me a racist then.

    So both XXX and you are calling the Mayor of Wichita a racist.

    So both XXX and you are calling all black men who vote Republican racists.

    Notice XXX didn’t say a certain few are racists, he said all Republicans are racists.

    You agree with XXX statement then Ben?

  29. Peacemakergdom
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 7:12 pm | Permalink

    Wheres all the love today? Merry Christmas everyone!

  30. Ben
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 7:19 pm | Permalink

    kansas – I never said I agreed with him; in many was I do not. My only point was that he is referring to the Republic Party of today and not that of a half-century ago. In fact; the majority of Republicans I know are NOT racists.

    And a Merry Christmas to you Peacemakergdom. I must say that I am a bit confused tonight. What with the ‘war on Christmas’ that we hear so much about why am I watching a presentation of the Christmas story on TV right now? On PBS no less! I would have thought that they would be the front line of the secular war against Christmas!

    /sarcasm off

  31. Posted December 24, 2007 at 7:20 pm | Permalink

    Here is a New Year’s Resolution that all the Libs will enjoy.

    I will stop blogging forever.

    Primarily because I will be busy from obligations.

    That, and the Libs here on the blog will not be able to use me as a target.

    Nothing a Lib fears more than not knowing what the other side is up to.

    The unknown will absolutely kill them.

  32. Ben
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 7:29 pm | Permalink

    Mine are simple – exercise and lose weight. I figure those will last until about 12:01 AM!

  33. J R
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 9:30 pm | Permalink

    Good bye farefar and good riddance there “kansas”.

  34. The Phantom
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 10:50 pm | Permalink

    You’ve got to watch these Repub. slime balls, they’re once again trying to allow for monopolization of the media!http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071225/ap_on_go_ot/media_ownership_3

  35. The Phantom
    Posted December 24, 2007 at 11:01 pm | Permalink

    More on this Admin’s stranglehold of information.Let the presidential record show… By Charles N. DavisMon Dec 24, 3:00 AM ET

    ( Bush KNEW his admin. would have much to hide on coming into office. )

    By now, many have forgotten the records-censoring executive order issued by President Bush in November of 2001. The order gutted the Presidential Records Act of 1978 and gave presidents the right to prevent the release of their presidential papers – forever.

    This audacious act requires nothing less than a national conversation about the role of history in a representative democracy. For it mocks the very notion that the historical record of the presidency is Americans’ shared property, the font of all meaningful historical examination of what went right and what went wrong and how we can do it better in the future.

    It takes decades, even centuries, for an accurate account of presidential history to evolve. As the partisan myopia of the present gives way to the serious study of the past, We The People turn to our historians for understanding.

    I’ve always had utmost respect for historians, for I have dabbled in the craft enough to gain an appreciation for how rigorous the work is, how time-consuming a method history can be in the hands of experts. Documents are to historians what minerals are to geologists: Without unfettered access to the tools of the trade, we’re left with the best-guess version of history, replete with spin, post hoc dissembling, and an utter lack of the healthful accountability that history provides.

    In recording the past, history also threatens to hold the present to account. Many a politico, faced with a decision between the public interest and political expediency, can be brought to the light with a single reminder: History will know what you did.

    President Bush, however, seems unperturbed by the importance of his legacy. In a Jan. 8, 2007, story in the Dallas Morning News, the president told Wayne Slater and G. Robert Hillman that he’s still reading histories about George Washington. “If they’re still analyzing No. 1, 43 ought not to worry about it,” he said.

    Perhaps this worry-free philosophy stems from the fact that he has a tight grip on the documents that would inform future historians.

    The 2001 executive order even allows a sitting president to block the release of a former president’s records, even if that president doesn’t object to the public disclosure of his personal papers.

    To challenge action taken under the order, historians, journalists, and ordinary citizens must seek redress in court.

    Historians, who know that our history begets our future, rose up in outrage. Congress responded, albeit slowly. The House passed legislation this year to nullify President Bush’s order by the veto-proof margin of 333 to 93, with 104 Republicans breaking administration ranks.

    That bill was also on its way to passage in the Senate when, on Sept. 24, Sen. Jim Bunning (R) of Kentucky objected to floor consideration of the measure, automatically holding up a vote.

    I called Senator Bunning’s office the other day. Yes, a staffer told me, the senator has a hold on the bill. And no, he won’t be saying why.

    This act should gall those who care about the sanctity – and significance – of the nation’s history.

    If those who ignore their history are doomed to repeat it, then what becomes of those who manipulate their history? And what does it say of the citizenry who allows the whitewashing?

    It’s worth remembering the widespread disgust over presidential secrecy that gave rise to the Presidential Records Act. It emerged from the tattered remnants of Richard Nixon’s presidency, in reaction to his attempts to control the historical record. The law asserted complete “ownership, possession, and control” of all presidential and vice presidential records by the National Archivist, who would make them available to the public 12 years after a president leaves office. The only exception is that if a former or incumbent president claims an exemption based on a “constitutionally based” executive privilege or continuing national security concern.

    Now, the Bush administration, using its powers of executive order, wants to obscure its own history. Future presidents, Republican or Democrat, will find that sort of control downright tempting.

    If Bush’s executive order is not overturned by Congress, it will allow presidents, their heirs, and – for the first time – vice presidents and their heirs, to deny the American people access to the full historical record of their administrations. History will lose to propaganda, unless those who record it are freed to do their work.

    Charles N. Davis is the executive director of the National Freedom of Information (FOI) Coalition at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He is also a member of the Society of Professional Journalists FOI Committee.