June 24, 2004

I'll get you yet, Snidely Whiplash!
Posted by Jon Henke

I really have no opinion on the legal merits of the case, but it's worth passing along. The Supreme Court has nominally ruled for Cheney in the energy task force case...

The Supreme Court refused Thursday to order the Bush administration to make public secret details of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, but kept the case alive by sending it back to a lower court.

Justices said 7-2 that a lower court should consider whether a federal open government law could be used to get documents of the task force.

The Good: The case was decided 7-2, so it will be hard for critics to claim it was decided along ideological lines. And Scalia didn't have to cast a deciding vote, which would have been contentious after his duck hunting trip with Cheney.

The Bad: As a matter of principle, one understands why the executive branch doesn't want to make every discussion public. As a matter of politics, there are going to be a great many people wondering why it was so important not to disclose those meetings. And all of us can wonder whether the secrecy was principled or political.

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As a matter of politics, there are going to be a great many people wondering why it was so important not to disclose those meetings.

There's also the precedent that disclosing the meetings would have made. It's the "camel's nose under the tent" argument: once one meeting is disclosed, it becomes that much more difficult to keep any other meetings secret, no matter how legitimate the secrecy is. Sometimes you have to fight for your rights in a small matter to preserve that right in a future, much bigger matter.

There are right now plenty of checks to the Executive Branch; had the court ruled the other way, then the floodgates would be open for every organization in the country to start litigation against any President for any future policy meeting.

Posted by: Steverino at June 24, 2004 10:33 AM

As a matter of principle, we don't have any need to know what color tie Cheney wore during a meeting, or any other detail. The policy potentially affected by such a meeting is -- newsflash! -- enshrined in legislative proposals that can be downloaded in PDF format at Kinko's and will be ripped apart, denounced, amended, debated, and even ignominiously rejected (on TV) by Congress.

Years ago I sat in on Senate meetings whose details would never be publicly known (not that the idea even was in the air at the time) -- but all the public business took place under the TV lights out on the floor. Recorded votes, videotape-able statements, etc.

I need help seeing an iota of principle or public interest (or even yet another utterly implausible and intellectually lazy "slippery slope" default argument) in details about meetings when the related policies are openly proposed, debated, amended, adopted, or rejected.

Posted by: IceCold at June 24, 2004 10:50 AM

I should emphasize that the "Bad" I mentioned was largely a PR "bad". I'd agree that the advice Cheney got is less relevant than the product in the bill. But appearances, you know.

To some degree, whether it should appear "suspect" is beside the point. It does to a great many people, so....

Posted by: Jon Henke at June 24, 2004 01:34 PM