Didn't the Clinton administration promise to break the gridlock in Washington? Isn't the administration trying to "reinvent government" so the federal establishment can respond to public wants and needs more expeditiously?
If so, those vows and goals are certainly hard to discern from the way the White House has been dragging its feet on the release of government documents about one of the most traumatic events in American history of this century.Though 30 years have passed since President Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, public interest in that tragic episode remains extraordinarily high.
So high, in fact, that a dozen books, new TV documentaries and docu-dramas, magazine cover stories and symposiums have been produced recently about John F. Kennedy and the bloody end to his brief presidency in a Dallas motorcade.
It was in response to such continuing interest that Congress last year passed a law unlocking government files on the JFK assassination that otherwise would have remained secret until the year 2029.
Though the 1992 law resulted in the prompt release of some 800,000 pages of such long-concealed documents, a mountain of such papers has yet to be made public. By one estimate, some 80 percent of the record is still to be disclosed.
Sadly, it won't be disclosed until the government itself is better at obeying the law than it has been so far.
Under the 1992 law, President Clinton was supposed to appoint a board to review and disclose the unreleased JFK documents - and he was supposed to complete the job in 45 days. Instead, he took most of the year.
There's yet another snag. The panel can't get down to work until the Senate confirms the appointment of its members. But the Senate, which is adjourning for Thanksgiving, is not expected to act until sometime next year.
So much for the schedule specified in the law. So much for the breaking of gridlocks and the streamlining of government. Never mind the intense public interest in the documents on the Kennedy assassination.
If there's a lesson to this sorry episode, perhaps it's only that some things never change. Just as the documents released so far have changed few minds, neither are the unreleased ones likely to alter views about whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone or as part of a conspiracy in the JFK assassination.
Nor has the public been given any reason to change its view that politicians are quick to break promises and to act as if federal laws apply only to ordinary citizens, not the nation's top leaders.