Since that modified, limited mea culpa, Mr. Holder has acknowledged that the program was fatally flawed and said he was the one who ended it. But rather than cooperate fully with the investigation, Mr. Holder’s department began an epic stonewall to block Congressional attempts to find out what really transpired. …

One of the ironies of Mr. Holder’s claim is that, in his letter to Mr. Obama requesting executive privilege, he cites Bush Administration arguments during the battle over the dismissal of several U.S. Attorneys. Readers may recall how Democrats, including a Senator named Obama, denounced the “tendency” of the Bush Administration “to hide behind executive privilege.”

Yet compared to Mr. Holder, Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was a model of candor and his department complied with nearly every document request. The Bush White House also turned over piles of documents, and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and White House counsel Harriet Miers eventually both gave interviews to House investigators. You can find them on Democratic Congressman John Conyers’s website. The Reagan Justice Department also bent to Congress when Democrats sought documents while probing the EPA in the 1980s.