It was once easy to tell what was yours, and what was mine. There was public, and there was private. Public things belonged to the people in general, or were “out there” for all to see. Private things pertained to us as individuals – and I don’t mean possessions alone – thoughts, hopes, and freedoms can be personal too.

Until recently, most of us were good at telling the difference between these two spheres of life. We didn’t need special explanations, or any court or government official warning us off one area, or directing us to another. But, things change. Celebrities – and the ordinary people who imitate them – spread their dirty laundry in public. The Supreme Court rules that governments can seize private property – your house for example – for the benefit of private businesses that generate greater benefits for the “community” – like more taxes than they can collect on your home. Washington, in particular, even likes to create its own definitions of what it means to be “public,” and what it means to be “private.” The battle over Judge Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States is a perfect example.

As a judge, John Glover Roberts is largely a cipher. Not that he is a complete zero, but having only been appointed to a judgeship by George W. Bush in 2003, he does not have much of a judicial record to go on. Thus, his judicial opinions cannot be expected to offer much insight into the man’s thoughts or outlook. Roberts has, however, served the Federal Government, and various non-governmental clients, for a period of more than twenty years. As a lawyer, John Robert’s musings are legion. He served both the Reagan and Bush I Administrations, working as a Deputy Solicitor General under the latter.

In an attempt to resolve the “mystery” of Judge Roberts’ personal “values”, the Dubya Directorate has gleefully turned over access to much of Roberts’ Reagan Era record – fifty thousand pages of it. Very generous, no doubt, but what about all that work Judge John did for Poppie? And in a higher position? Don’t we get to see that? Isn’t that public information too?

No way! In a bold new definition of what constitutes a “private” relationship, Oliver Wendell Bush has declared that any advice given by a Deputy Solicitor General to his president, or to his president’s officials, is a matter of “attorney/client privilege.”

Attorney/client privilege! How about that? That sure is private, isn’t it?  You wouldn’t want your lawyer revealing stuff about you? No, sir.  He works for you. That is private stuff. Private with a “p” as in personal… right?

Right. But, is government business undertaken by the president of the United States private business? Isn’t the president a public official? Isn’t he working for us… for all of us? “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” – that’s what Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address. In other words, the president, vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, and all those other lowly secretaries like Valerie Plame Wilson, work for… you… you the people… the citizens of the United States of America. You are their bosses. Their managers. What they do, they do in your name.

So, to put it bluntly – when King George II (the second of the Bush Dynasty), claims that divulging advice given by Judge Roberts to his esteemed father, George I, while Roberts was employed as a Deputy Solicitor General, is protected by attorney/client privilege… well, who, in this case, is the client… it is you! The American Public! Lincoln knew what he was talking about when he gave the Gettysburg Address. Unfortunately, George W. Bush and his adherents subscribe to the ideas of a very different Getty’s Burg… or ExxonMobil’s Burg… or Texaco’s Burg… ideas that seek to elevate George W. Bush to a position where he is beyond all reproach and control.

This is not about “executive privilege.” This is not about separation of powers.  This is about the privatization of America – the privatization of your rights by a petroleum guzzling political machine.

Somebody turn it off!

 

Brian Adler is a screenwriter and a writer/researcher. His work also appears on the new Progressive Blog at IseFire.com.