No Transparent Whales, Please

Sometimes voyaging in the whale is difficult due to prohibitions on seeing exactly what is up ahead. For instance, as reported in the Washington Post today.

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

Cheney removes himself from Google Maps, while the Whale blackens windows. But what of this reading of executive privilege?

Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues, called the administration's stance "astonishing."

"That's a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers," Rozell said. "What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all."

As this Bushean reading of executive privilege appears based on a Justice Department opinion during the Reagan administration that was never tested in the courts, well . . . seems exactly this is where the Whale is sailing.