An editorial in today's San Antonio Express-News advises the Bush administration to release the visitor records that CREW is requesting.  We concur:

The presidency is a powerful position, the most powerful in the world, powerful enough to withstand the disclosure of a visitors list.

President Bush would have you think otherwise.

President Bush is wrong.

White House lawyers, responding to a federal judge who had ordered the release of the list last year, contend the disclosure would erode the power of the office — a specious argument that merely enhances the view of this administration as closed and secretive.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the group seeking the list, does not want a transcript of the conversations between these visitors and the president and vice president.

If it did, the White House might have a case; instead, the group merely wants the list to determine how often prominent religious conservatives visited both the White House and the vice presidential residence.

CREW has been fighting the Bush administration's efforts to prevent the release of visitor records for the White House and the Vice Presidential mansion. We maintain these are public records and a federal district court judge agreed with us. The Bush administration is appealing -- and we'll be in the Court of Appeals today opposing them again:

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wants to use the Secret Service documents to show the influence religious conservatives have on the Bush administration. The government argues that proves the records are related to the White House, not to the workings of the Secret Service, and should not be released.

"The prospect of each and every appointment record immediately becoming the subject of forced public disclosure would surely cast a chill over the ability of the president and vice president to collect information and advice," Justice Department lawyers wrote in court documents.

CREW lawyers reject that argument. They say the documents shouldn't be considered White House records simply because a watchdog group is trying to find out what the White House is up to. The Secret Service created and controlled the documents, the lawyers said, so they should be public.

Nearly two dozen news organizations, including The Associated Press, filed court documents supporting the release of the Secret Service logs.

Waco is the closest city to George Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.  So, today's tough editorial in the Waco Tribune was especially interesting.  Citing CREW's lawsuit against the Bush administration over visitor records, the paper takes Bush to task for his "culture of secrecy":

President Bush’s culture of secrecy belies his administration’s emphasis on accountability.

The principle of open government bolsters America’s representative democracy by ensuring that the people have access to public affairs conducted in their behalf.

Transparency in government goes hand in hand with accountability, a fact that gives the Bush administration extremely low marks in its promise to be accountable to the people.

They've reached the same conclusion we have:

By constantly fighting to deny public access to public business, Bush gives the unavoidable impression that he has a lot to hide.

Not a big surprise given the herculean efforts and elaborate scheming undertaken by the Bush administration to foster secrecy.  There will be an appeal of the decision requiring the Bush administration to make public its visitor records.  We're supposed to receive the records within 20 days of the decision, but they've asked the judge to stay that, too:

The Bush administration asked a federal judge Thursday not to force the release of White House visitor logs until it can appeal a ruling that the documents are public.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth rejected the government's secrecy arguments and ordered the Secret Service to turn over the records to a liberal watchdog group that sought them through a public records.

The logs being sought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington relate to White House visits regarding nine conservative religious commentators, including James Dobson, Gary Bauer and Jerry Falwell.

More editorial support for CREW's lawsuit against the Bush administration.  This from the Las Vegas Sun:

On Monday U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth rightly rebuked the Bush administration, seeing its argument as nothing more than a smokescreen. He ordered the administration to turn over the documents.

That follows a decision in a separate lawsuit in which a judge ordered Vice President Dick Cheney's office to turn over its visitor logs. The administration is appealing the decision in Cheney's case and is expected to appeal Lamberth's decision as well.

If the administration had any sense of decency, it would quit wasting taxpayer money fighting these lawsuits and accept that the public has a right to know who is doing the public's business.

The New York Times:

Judge Lamberth questioned the legality of a 2006 agreement between the Secret Service and the Bush administration in which the records were supposed to be turned over to the White House and labeled presidential documents, which would bar their release under freedom of information lawsuits.

The judge described the agreement as “self-serving” because it was drafted after the records were created and after the litigation had begun. Until the Bush administration, White House visitor logs had often been released by the Secret Service in response to requests from outside groups and news organizations.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of the advocacy group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said her organization was “pleased that the judge saw through the White House’s transparent attempts to hide public documents from the American people.”

The group had wanted logs for White House visits by several conservative religious commentators, including James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, and the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Washington Post:

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth rejected this argument, saying the records qualify as "agency records" subject to disclosure. He also rejected the claim that the records should be kept secret to preserve the confidentiality of presidential and vice presidential deliberations, noting that even a Cheney aide testified that the purpose of the visits is not apparent from the documents.

"Knowledge of these visitors would not disclose presidential communications or shine a light on the President's or Vice President's policy deliberations," Lamberth wrote in his opinion.

Officials with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sued to obtain the records, expressed satisfaction. "CREW is pleased that the judge saw through the White House's transparent attempts to hide public documents from the American people. We look forward to sharing the documents we obtain through this lawsuit," said Executive Director Melanie Sloan.

The Associated Press report on CREW's victory in court today: 

White House visitor logs are public documents, a federal judge ruled Monday, rejecting a legal strategy that the Bush administration had hoped would get around public records laws and let them keep their guests a secret.

The ruling is a blow to the Bush administration, which has fought the release of records showing visits by prominent religious conservatives.

Visitor records are created by the Secret Service, which is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. But the Bush administration has ordered the data turned over to the White House, where they are treated as presidential records outside the scope of the public records law.

But U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled logs from the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence remain Secret Service documents and are subject to public records requests.

In a lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal watchdog group, Lamberth ordered the Secret Service to turn over visitor logs regarding nine conservative religious commentators, including James Dobson, Gary Bauer and Jerry Falwell.

"I think it's hugely significant," said Anne L. Weismann, the watchdog group's chief counsel. "The judge saw their arguments for what they were."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto and Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said lawyers were reviewing the decision and they would have no immediate response. The Bush administration is expected to appeal the ruling.

After we learned about the victory in court today, Melanie Sloan made this statement:

CREW is pleased that the judge saw through the White House’s transparent attempts to hide public documents from the American people. We look forward to sharing the documents we obtain through this lawsuit.

Based on the judge's decision, we should have the records within 20 days. 

This just in.  

Today, the court in CREW v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Security issued an opinion holding that White House visitor records that the Secret Service creates and maintains are agency records subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Judge Lamberth rejected the government's arguments that the records were under the exclusive control of the White House and therefore not agency records subject to the FOIA. In particular, Judge Lamberth rejected the memorandum of understanding that the Secret Service and White House entered into and on which they were relying as evidence that the records belonged to the White House, calling the agreement "self-serving" because it was executed after the Secret Service created the records and was sued by CREW for them.

As a result of today's ruling, records of visits to both the White House complex and the residency of the vice president are now publicly available through the FOIA.

The Austin American-Statesman thinks that who visited Vice President Cheney's residence to conduct business is something the public is entitled to know.  Not a surprise, but we agree -- strongly:

In short, the American public, the White House says, is not entitled to know who attempts to influence Cheney. That might not matter so much if Cheney were powerless, but there's good reason to think he is one of the most powerful vice presidents in American history.

The White House's position was stated in a Sept. 13 letter that came to light recently when it was filed in court by the Justice Department, which is defending the government against a lawsuit by a group calling itself Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The group wants to find out which conservative religious leaders recently have visited Cheney.

In May 2006, the White House signed a memorandum of understanding with the Secret Service that its visitor logs were presidential and therefore not covered by Freedom of Information Act. Now the White House and Cheney are trying to extend that exemption to the vice president's office.

The White House has told the court that the visitor logs should be kept confidential to preserve "the effective functioning of the vice presidency under the Constitution," and that releasing the information would "impinge on the ability of the (vice president) to gather information in confidence."

But no one is trying to force the vice president or his visitors to disclose what was said, only who the visitors were and who they met with at the vice president's office or residence. That's government business, and that makes it the public's business.