Of course, what really rankles them is that Bush’s nominee, Allen Weinstein, is the man who outed Soviet spy Alger Hiss.
Officially, however, they’re upset because the nomination was so “sneaky” and that Bush must be doing this because he knows he’s going to lose the election and therefore must protect his father’s papers. It matters not that outgoing archivist John W. Carlin had written to Bush last December requesting that the president find a replacement for him in the spring of 2004. Nor that Weinstein is noted for his commitment to openness; as the Chronicle of Higher Education (pay site) reports, “Weinstein helped persuade the Church of Christ, Scientist, to release records on its founder, Mary Baker Eddy,” arguing that openness was the key to the library having “intellectual legitimacy.”
