"POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS":

Presidential Campaign Was Cited During Talks to Seal Dean's Papers as Governor (RICK LYMAN, 12/27/03, NY Times)

Last January, as his presidential campaign was stirring to life, Howard Dean was asked why he had decided to keep nearly half of his records as governor of Vermont under seal until 2013.

"Well, there are future political considerations," Dr. Dean told statehouse reporters. "We didn't want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a critical time in any future endeavor."

Dr. Dean now says he was joking about why he invoked executive privilege to keep 145 boxes of his official records — about 47 percent of them — under a 10-year seal. But there is ample evidence in the letters and e-mail correspondence between the former Vermont governor's counsel, David M. Rocchio, and the state archivist, D. Gregory Sanford, that a possible presidential race was indeed part of the discussions concerning how long to keep the records private.

Given the Doctor's willingness to repeat many of his own foolish statements, like that we're no safer with Ba'athism gone from Iraq, one can only wonder at what kinds of prior statements and writings even he thinks would be too embarrassing to risk revealing to the American people.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 28, 2003 12:13 AM