Interesting article in the Washington Post:
Under President Bill Clinton, multiple clashes with Congress, the judiciary and independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr chipped away at attorney-client and executive privileges on sensitive documents and conversations. But since coming to power, Bush has doggedly reclaimed turf that eroded under Clinton, asserting the power of his office to shield everything from energy policy deliberations to the papers of past presidents.
...
In a showdown with the Senate opposition over something like the Roberts papers, Klain recalled, a politically and legally weakened Clinton White House often would find a compromise to end the dispute.
"I have no doubt that if that had been us, we would have turned over the papers," Klain said. "I'm not saying that's a good thing; I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But whenever we walked up to the brink, we blinked. And these guys don't, and they're prepared to pay the price for it."
What's interesting, though, isn't Bush's obsessive attempts to retain executive privilege, it's the Senate's willingness to allow them. As the myth goes, the place is dotted by traditionalists fiercely committed to the institution's independence and totally unwilling to be pushed around by snot-nosed executives who'll be out of office in a blink of the historical eye. And yet these same guys -- Warner, Roberts, and so forth -- have shown no qualms about ceding power if it could lead to partisan advantage, or even partisan unity. Tension with the White House simply wasn't worth the cost of a strong Senate.
In the American Prospect, Matt and Mark wrote a piece puncturing the myth of Republican moderates. Moderation without the courage to buck the party and vote moderately is no virtue. But so too is it time to give up on Senate traditionalists. Save for Robert Byrd, there's no longer a contingent up there committed to protecting the institution, to keeping the president in check, to keeping the Senate independent. The WaPo's right: Clinton would have folded. But he would've folded because Republican Senators would've fiercely decried his secrecy, abuses of power, and disrespect for the office. In the end, it's not that Bush is doing anything different, it's just that the actors holding Clinton in check have quietly crept from the stage. They didn't want to protect the theatre, they just hated the play.
