Stonewall

2005 (c) A.M. Stan for AFGE

Two weeks after Katrina hit New Orleans, a city emptied of its citizens was one vast bin of debris.

If only Lake Pontchartrain had been contained by a stone wall of equal height and strength to the one the Bush administration has erected against the Katrina queries of the U.S. Congress, the people of New Orleans' lower Ninth Ward might still have homes there today.

From today's New York Times comes this account of obstruction, as the Administration seeks to shield its Katrina-related correspondence from prying eyes of Congress -- which, mes amis, is supposed to function as the eyes and ears of tu et moi, as nous--as in all y'all--are a bit too big of a plural to be granted an unobstructed view of the unitary executive. From reporter Eric Lipton:

The Bush administration, citing the confidentiality of executive branch communications, said Tuesday that it did not plan to turn over certain documents about Hurricane Katrina or make senior White House officials available for sworn testimony before two Congressional committees investigating the storm response.

[...]

Yet even Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, objected when administration officials who were not part of the president's staff said they could not testify about communications with the White House.

"I completely disagree with that practice," Ms. Collins, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in an interview Tuesday.

For the next seven days, you can read Lipton's piece by clicking here.