Bush's claim of executive privilege is wildly misplaced

Slate Magazine: By Bruce Fein

[T]urn your memory clock back approximately 25 years to the spring of 1973.

The nation was transfixed by the testimony of John Dean, former White House counsel, before the Senate Watergate committee. He meticulously recounted presidential conversations in the Oval Office that implicated both himself and President Richard M. Nixon in obstruction of justice. Mr. Dean's unbosoming of presidential communications led to the voting of three articles of impeachment against Mr. Nixon by the House judiciary committee and the president's subsequent resignation on Aug. 9, 1974. President Nixon never sought to silence Dean by claiming a constitutional privilege to keep confidential presidential communications, which Congress sought in exercising its authority to investigate crime or maladministration in the executive branch. ...

Mr. Fielding served as Dean's deputy. He has never maintained that President Nixon could have muzzled Dean by invoking executive privilege. But that is the inescapable implication of his defense of President Bush's prerogative to silence former presidential aides Sara M. Taylor and Harriet E. Miers, whom Congress has subpoenaed, and to shield presidential documents that have also been subpoenaed. ...

But suspicion has arisen that the White House intended to manipulate U.S. attorneys in some instances to harass Democrats with contrived voting fraud prosecutions or otherwise. The committees' interest in exposing misuse of the president's power to appoint and remove executive officials is compelling. As Justice Louis Brandies observed, sunshine is the best disinfectant. The congressional judiciary committees are further legitimately investigating whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or other Department of Justice officials committed perjury or endeavored to obstruct Congress' investigation by misrepresenting White House involvement in the decisions to remove the U.S. attorneys. The Supreme Court, in the 1957 case Watkins v. United States, explained that Congress enjoys the power to "inquire into and publicize corruption, maladministration, or inefficiencies" in the executive branch, including crimes. President Bush's assertion of executive privilege to stymie the committees' well-founded investigations is wildly misplaced. ...

It is not often that I have occasion to cite the very conservative Bruce Fein with such enthusiasm...
I'm not sure there are many principled conservatives left who are still inclined to defend this Administration.
But lots of shills remain. It is ever thus.
This is America. God bless...