Bush relents, some Roberts papers released

The Bush administration will release some of the mysterious Roberts documents which could give insight into the kinds of decisions the man will make as a Supreme Court justice. While the Bush team refuses to release documents from Roberts tenure as Deputy Solicitor General (1989-1993), they will make public papers from his work with the White House counsel's office in the mid 1980s. The administration officials said the White House's intention was for all the documents from Judge Roberts's time in the counsel's office, except those held back for reasons of national security or personal privacy . . . . (NYTimes) National security my ass. The unreleased papers are from his work with the notoriously controversial and uber-partisan, Kenneth W. Starr. . . . not covered by the Presidential Records Act, [those papers] record "sensitive, deliberative, confidential" conversations among administration lawyers in developing legal cases for argument before the Supreme Court and therefore should not be released publicly, one of the officials said. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if they're directly related to the Supreme Court and they are historical records, doesn't that make them all the more RELEVANT for review and analysis? My friend Rosalie had some really good thoughts on the whole matter: The thing that really gets me about the protection of "personal" documents written by John Roberts, is that these "personal" documents are memos on cases which might--and because they are being protected--probably do reveal important information on how Roberts personally feels about certain legislation and court rulings. The current government has become hyper-protective of it's own writings even as it is becoming hyper-watchful of what others write. To me this clearly signals that the current government is aware of what others might be hiding since it, in turn, is hiding so much. Well put, my dear.