The Hollywood Liberal

And the war drags on

Denver Post
Excerpt
Congress, apparently content to explore ever-new depths in public disapproval, is on the verge of having a single member derail the most meaningful reform in years of the federal Freedom of Information Act.

How, you ask, when overwhelming majorities support the legislation in both the House and Senate?

The secret hold, of course. Ever heard of the secret hold? It’s a beauty – a real relic of the smoke-filled rooms of yesteryear, the stuffed shirts and fat cats with stogies guffawing over the latest bamboozle of the taxpaying schmucks.

Members of the Society of Professional Journalists, the nation’s largest journalism advocacy organization, used the power of the blogosphere to find out whose legislative bludgeon was buried in the back of open government. We called every senator, one by one, until at last – when it became clear he could hide no longer – Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., came blinking and grimacing into the sunlight and admitted that it was he who placed a secret hold … on a bill that addresses secrecy in government.

You can’t make this stuff up.

This is how it works in Washington: Sen. Kyl – this year’s Secrecy Champion – has several objections to the Freedom of Information Reform Act, a truly wonderful bill that would significantly improve one of the strongest tools Americans have to supervise the inner workings of government and to hold elected officials accountable.

Last week, Kyl issued a statement after he was “outed,” saying the Justice Department has strenuously objected, and that’s good enough for him.

HL’s Take:
Apparently any legislation can be put on hold if just one Senator asks for it. This Kyl guy of course was trying to keep it a secret. How much you want to bet that he was doing it for Bush?
If that bill goes through all kinds of monkey secrets could come spilling out. Some of the 80 republicans that were behind this bill may have known Kyl would block it so perhaps they went against Bush and voted for it to make themselves look good. Like they will soon have to do in their votes about the Iraq war, if they want to keep their jobs

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 5:50 am and is filed under H.L. News, Main Blog (All Posts). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.