THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S PENCHANT FOR SECRECY has apparently found an unlikely admirer:

As investigative reporters and “oppo” researchers flock to Vermont to dig into Howard Dean’s past, they have run into a roadblock. A large chunk of Dean’s records as governor are locked in a remote state warehouse—the result of an aggressive legal strategy designed in part to protect Dean from political attacks.

DEAN—WHO HAS BLASTED the Bush administration for excessive secrecy—candidly acknowledged that politics was a major reason for locking up his own files when he left office last January. He told Vermont Public Radio he was putting a 10-year seal on many of his official papers—four years longer than previous Vermont governors—because of “future political considerations… We didn’t want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a critical time.”

Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and all that.