by James Glaser
January 17, 2007

America is focused on Iraq. Every day the news is filled with what is going on in the war zone or with what is going on in Washington that relates to the war. Sometimes though, if you snoop around the internet you find that some news papers and investigative reporters are looking at what else is going on with our politicians.

The Hartford Courant newspaper in Connecticut is telling President Bush to turn over the White House visitor log. They ask, "What is the Bush administration hiding and why?"

This last spring the media was finding out that convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff was a regular visitor at the White House. Well George and his people didn't like that, so the White House signed an agreement with the Secret Service that says the White House visitor logs are off-limits to the public.

This from an editorial in the Courant on January 16, 2007:

The five-page agreement declares that all logs about the comings and goings of White House visitors are presidential records (rather than agency records) and therefore not subject to public disclosure under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The deal was signed on May 17, the day after a Washington-based group seeking access to the visitors log asked a federal judge to impose sanctions against the Secret Service.

The administration didn't disclose the existence of the memo until last fall when, in a separate lawsuit, officials used the agreement to explain why they shouldn't turn the logs over to The Washington Post.

It seems that when asked last spring, the White House said that Jack Abramoff wasn't that frequent of a visitor, but a House committee found that Mr. Abramoff had made contact with presidential aides 485 times in the last three years, and with Karl Rove on ten of those visits.

George Bush doesn't want Americans to know who comes to see him at the White House. You would think that as long as he is working for us and that we own the White House, those visitor logs would be public record. They were with past presidents, and for sure they were when everyone was looking at what Bill Clinton was doing.

Once again, George Bush can change rules, changing the laws to suit his needs. This time he needs to keep who sees him a secret. It sure makes you wonder why?

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