Nation-Building >> VT Gov Jim Douglas (Republican): Keep the records sealed | return to front page

Enough already! As has been stated in multiple posts, there is no smoking gun in Dean's sealed records, and there are perfectly legitimate reasons for keeping his personal correspondence sealed. Vermont's current Governor - who happens to be a non-hypocritical Republican (a rare commodity now that the trolls are popping their corks over the prospect of running against such a strong Democratic contender) - weighs in on this issue:

(Douglas) "I don't know there's any reason to feel there's any smoking gun or anything really incriminating or exciting in governor Dean's records. I think it's a matter of curiosity now on the part of the media and his opponents."
(Kinzel) In 1990, as secretary of State, Douglas negotiated a six-year agreement with Governor Madeleine Kunin as she prepared to leave office. Douglas says he believes that allowing governors to seal their papers preserves a more accurate historical record for the future:
(Douglas) "Ideally there would be no closure period but to be perfectly honest, my sense was that governors were more likely to leave more complete records of their administrations if there was a period of closure. There was less likely to be a sanitizing of the records and so the historic record would be more complete and that would be more beneficial to researchers over time. So I thought it was a small price to pay to have a brief period of closure, after which the record of the gubernatorial tenure would be more complete."

To be fair, the same could be said of Bush sealing his records back in Texas. Yes, I just typed that. As we all hopefully know by now, Bush shipped his records off to the GHW Bush Presidential Library, where they remained sealed until Public Citizen successfully sued for their release. It seems the same might happen to Dean, as conservative group Judicial Watch is threatening a lawsuit.
But with Bush, nothing from those records derailed his Presidency, and I imagine that nothing in Dean's records will derail his candidacy.
Trolls and wingnuts beware: Rove once joked that he wished Bush to face off against Dean. Now the RNC is so desperate that they're sending their top dogs out to attack us. This brouhaha is simply a desperate ploy to "stop Dean" and folks, that isn't going to happen as long as we remain focused. Don't take your eyes off the prize.