(Until Mr. Eight-Inch, Cut writes his “tell all” book, anyhow.)

Because Bush secretly had the records sealed:

The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring that records identifying visitors to the White House are not open to the public.

The Bush administration didn’t reveal the existence of the memorandum of understanding until last fall. The White House is using it to deal with a legal problem on a separate front, a ruling by a federal judge ordering the production of Secret Service logs identifying visitors to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

The five-page document dated May 17 declares that all entry and exit data on White House visitors belongs to the White House as presidential records rather than to the Secret Service as agency records. Therefore, the agreement states, the material is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

Of course, to a Republican, turnabout is definitely not fair play:

Secret Service records played a significant role in the Whitewater scandal in the 1990s, supplying congressional Republicans with leads [sic] to follow in their investigations [sic] of the Clintons.

Sigh. Now we’ll never get an answer to the question every American is asking:

Who played the “bottom” to Jeff Gannon’s “top”?

NOTE Sure, sure, Cheney, sure sure Abramoff, but isn’t “Jeff Gannon’s” Odyssey from suburban auto parts salesman to the White House far more packed with human interest?