C. Surpless

Caffeine and Nicotine
2008-09-29 05:41:00 (UTC)

White House 'Bonesman' leads nation into the dark

"My senior year (at Yale University) I joined Skull and
Bones, a secret society," President Bush wrote in his
autobiography, "so secret, I can't say anything more."

He doesn't have to. He's practically turning the government
into a secret society - an old-boy, throwback establishment
that even holds its secret spy-court proceedings in an
elaborately locked, windowless room that sounds similar to
the Bones' elaborately locked, practically windowless
"tomb," or campus clubhouse.

Bush, a loyal and particularly active member of Skull and
Bones, a mysterious, historically misogynist Yale-based
secret society, seems to have done almost all he can to
promote a level of secrecy in government not seen since the
Nixon administration:

* Last month, Bush-appointed Assistant Attorney General
Robert McCallum, a member of Bush's 1968 Skull and Bones
class, filed pleadings in U.S. District Court seeking to
extend executive privilege to any government official in
pardon cases; the move makes information on presidential
pardons more secret than it has ever been.
* After 9/11, without initially telling Congress, Bush
assembled a shadow government assigned to secret bunkers
somewhere on the East Coast. He also tried to cut off some
members of Congress from classified information about the
anti-terrorist campaign.
* The USA Patriot Act Bush eagerly signed lets the FBI -
with permission from a secret Washington "spy court" - view
some customer records; store owners cannot reveal the review
* In October 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft
released a memo encouraging federal agencies to withhold as
much information as possible from the public.
* A month later, just before documents from the
Reagan-Bush administration were to be released, Bush signed
an executive order severely hindering public access to
former presidents' records.
* Bush also signed legislation that jails or fines
journalists who publish sensitive leaks, essentially
reviving the Official Secrecy Act that President Clinton vetoed.

Bush has a "fetish for secrecy," Vanderbilt University
professor emeritus Hugh Davis Graham, now deceased, told the
National Journal earlier this year.

Granted, pressing issues of national security merit a level
of secrecy. But security and secrecy are not always
necessary companions, and some of these examples suggest
secrecy for secrecy's sake, such as the pardons and the
Reagan documents. Also, a government that operates in secret
prevents its constituents from holding it accountable and so
may be more prone to arbitrariness and ill-considered
conduct. This administration may even be doing itself a
disservice with its excess secrecy, which can cause people
to conjure up much more malicious and elitist scenarios than
may actually exist.

That is what has happened with Skull and Bones, which
operates a powerful alumni network but, despite the lore,
does not run a secret world government, collaborate with
Nazis or require initiates to lie naked in a coffin.

Bonesmen have long helped Bush; he received a fair chunk of
his early business financing from them and turned to them
for help when he needed a job, investors and campaign
assistance. Even his baseball-team purchase involved at
least one Bonesman. As president, Bush has appointed fellow
Bonesmen to high-level positions, such as Edward McNally,
the general counsel of the Office on Homeland Security and
senior associate counsel on national security. Yet, although
one of his first social gatherings at the White House was a
Skull and Bones reunion, Bush feigned ignorance when asked
recently about Bones: "The thing is so secret that I'm not
even sure it still exists," he replied.

Is it a coincidence that the federal government suddenly
prioritizes secrecy when a Skull and Bones president is in
power? Maybe. But there's no question that the Bush
administration increasingly resembles the Bones' dark,
locked tomb.




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