Allow me to indulge my cynicism.

U.S. to Declassify Secrets at Age 25

Secret documents 25 years old or older will lose their classified status without so much as the stroke of a pen, unless agencies have sought exemptions on the ground that the material remains secret.

Historians say the deadline, created in the Clinton administration but enforced, to the surprise of some scholars, by the secrecy-prone Bush administration, has had huge effects on public access, despite the large numbers of intelligence documents that have been exempted.

Question: why is the "secrecy-prone" Bush doing this?

Rank speculation:

1. The 25 year deadline reaches back to documents from before 1982. No damaging documents related to H. W. Bush until after that.

2. H. W.'s papers are already locked up - no worries there.

3. Anything released from the past will distract from current attempts at getting information from this administration.

More to follow, maybe.

How about this for a bit of political theater?

Instead of swearing in with a Bible, how about if a Congresscritter swears in with a phone book from her home district?

Because, you know, she is representing those people.

As opposed to God.

Context here.