My colleague Richard just wrote about why Rudy Guiliani is likely the Bush choice as his successor, mainly because of that messianic feel both have for the terrorism issue. But there’s a bunch more they have in common. These two just love to keep the public’s buniness secret. Here’s the Boston Herald’s editorial board on Bush’s secrets even extending to who visited the White House:

For most of its history the White House has indeed been a very public place - the comings and goings of visitors all a matter of public record. But in 2006 the paranoid Bush administration entered into an agreement with the Secret Service, which keeps the logs, to consider them “presidential” records. Thus this basic recording of information became exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests.

But to consider the mere presence of someone in the White House a subject of executive privilege is absurd and the judge said so in no uncertain terms.

“Knowledge of these visitors would not disclose presidential communications or shine a light on the president’s or vice president’s policy demonstrations,” Lamberth wrote. He also called the practice “self-serving.”

Bush is going down in history as the most secretive of Presidents, and that house of cards will fall some day, rest assured. We’ll eventually find out what Bush did concerning torture, Abramoff, the US Attorney scandal, Plamegate, etc. Those revelations, when they eventually happen, will secure Bush’s place in history as not just the most inept President in our history, but also as the most paranoid, even rivalling RMN. But in this era, Rudy led the way in extreme secrecy. Here’s the scoop according to the AP:

Ed Koch, mayor from 1978 to 1989, recalls keeping some neckties. His successor, David Dinkins, walked away with knickknacks from his desk, including a crystal tennis ball and a collection of photographs documenting his meetings with celebrities and business icons.

When Giuliani stepped down, he needed a warehouse.

Under an unprecedented agreement that didn’t become public until after he left office, Giuliani secreted out of City Hall the written, photographic and electronic record of his eight years in office — more than 2,000 boxes.

Along with his own files, the trove included the official records of Giuliani’s deputy mayors, his chief of staff, his travel office and Gracie Mansion — the mayor’s residence that became a legal battlefront during his caustic divorce.

The mayor made famous — and very wealthy — in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has long described his City Hall as an open book.

In a Republican presidential candidates’ debate last week, Giuliani asserted: “My government in New York City was so transparent that they knew every single thing I did almost every time I did it. … I can’t think of a public figure that’s had a more transparent life than I’ve had.”

But the public record, as reviewed by The Associated Press, shows a City Hall that had a reputation of resistance — even hostility — toward open government, the First Amendment and the public’s access to simple facts and figures.

“He ran a government as closed as he could make it,” said attorney Floyd Abrams, a widely recognized First Amendment authority who faced off against city lawyers when Giuliani sought to shut the Brooklyn Museum of Art because the mayor considered a painting sacrilegious.

You may, of course, go to the AP article and read more about the extreme paranoia of the Rudy Guiliani administration. It shows a level of secrecy that rivals even Dubya. No, we don’t want another Imperial President, do we?