What is Bush Hiding? "Executive Privilege" didn't work for Nixon, probably won't work for Dubya. Even if he wins 5-4 at the Supreme Court, the public outcry will send him home to Texas for an early start on his Presidential comic book library. If he doesn't want to go that way, he'd best bite the bullet and take his chances with the heat that whatever he's hiding about overlooked warnings he might have received prior to 9-11 will generate. Not even right-wing Republicans like to be stonewalled by autocratic, obviously self-serving maneuvering.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 — President Bush declined today to commit the White House to turning over highly classified intelligence reports to the independent federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, despite public threats of a subpoena from the bipartisan panel.
The president said in a brief meeting with reporters that the documents were "very sensitive" and that the White House was still discussing the issue with the panel's chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey.
Mr. Bush's remarks and subsequent comments today from his press secretary suggested that the White House may ultimately refuse the commission's demand for access to the documents, setting up a possible showdown between the White House and the independent investigators.
Last week, Mr. Kean said for the first time that he was prepared to issue a subpoena and risk a courtroom battle with the White House if the documents were not turned over within weeks.
Commission officials say the documents include copies of the so-called Presidential Daily Briefing — the summary prepared each morning by the Central Intelligence Agency for the Oval Office — that President Bush received in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks. The White House refused to provide the briefing reports to House and Senate investigators last year for their investigation of the attacks, citing executive privilege.
As a result of Mr. Kean's comments on Friday, a number of prominent lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, have joined in urging the White House to make the documents available to the panel, known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, which was created by Congress last year over the initial objections of the White House.
