TPM has a great post about the secrecy of the the Office Of Vice President. He cites a Laura Rosen piece in the Washington Monthly that mentions the secrecy of the OVP regarding employees. Public servants all.
Laura Rozen has a piece in the current Washington Monthly titled "Cheney's Dead-Enders" that is worth a read. But I wanted to hone in on this parenthetical:
(When I inquired about a staffer’s rumored move to the Veep’s office, a Cheney press officer answered sweetly, "If we have a personnel announcement we’d like you to know about, we’ll tell you.")
This is not the first time I've seen a reporter denied information about who even works in the Office of the Vice President
These are public servants getting paid with taxpayer money. David Kurtz continues..
Think about that. The Vice President of the United States refuses to divulge who works in his office. Rozen's article provides an estimate of 88 persons on the VP's staff, which I take to mean that the OVP won't even say how many people are on staff. These are people on the public payroll. Wouldn't you say the public is entitled to know?
Most of the debate over the nexus between national security and official secrecy is about where to draw the line. That is, how to balance the necessity of openness and transparency in a democratic society with the need to protect important operational details of the nation's defense. I lean heavily toward transparency, but I will acknowledge that there is a legitimate question of where to draw that line.
But Cheney's policy of refusing to reveal who works for him--for us, actually--isn't about balance. It's about a perverse sense of entitlement and a deep aversion to scrutiny and accountability. It is anti-democratic.
Perhaps a committee chair should consider requesting a roster of employees in the OVP. Just on principle.
The post goes on to cite previous examples of such secrecy from the American Prospect.
His press people seem shocked that a reporter would even ask for an interview with the staff. The blanket answer is no -- nobody is available. Amazingly, the vice president’s office flatly refuses to even disclose who works there, or what their titles are. "We just don’t give out that kind of information," says Jennifer Mayfield, another of Cheney’s "angels." She won’t say who is on staff, or what they do? No, she insists. "It’s just not something we talk about." The notoriously silent OVP staff rebuffs not just pesky reporters but even innocuous database researchers from companies like Carroll Publishing, which puts out the quarterly Federal Directory. "They’re tight-lipped about the kind of information they put out," says Albert Ruffin, senior editor at Carroll, who fumes that Cheney’s office doesn’t bother returning his calls when he’s updating the limited information he manages to collect.
Somehow Cheney seems to think that secrecy is important to shield citizens from the dirty nuance of government policy that is for the good of the country but somehow wouldn't look good when exposed to air and sunshine. How this covers information about who works in OVP, I don't know. Let's say the country has a grand international vision of world domination that somehow goes wrong. A war that was suppose to a cakewalk turns into a multi-year quagmire. Who would want the public to know about the decision making process that went in to a war policy that are really good for the whole country?
This country was built on fighting against those who wield power with arrogance. The founding fathers would be quite happy to see folks like Bush and Cheney get their due.