be careful with a fool..cuz someday he might get smart
on first consideration, this may seem like a difficult argument to make, but let's not forget self-preservation has motivated even the lowliest single-cell parasitic organisms to develop amazingly successful defensive strategies.
with that in mind, it shouldnt surprise anyone that the president has done the same thing on a considerably less grand scale.
here are two examples:
1. on july 2, 2002, the whitehouse informed the rest of the world that the United States would not sign on to the International Criminal Court (ICC) saying as the country works to build peace around the world its diplomats and soldiers could be dragged "into this court and that's very troubling." (if this seems to be a properly 'conservative' position, you may be surprised to learn it runs directly contrary to that of a man who embodied conservative political thought throughout much of the last century, senator robert taft of ohio; taft wholeheartedly endorsed the idea of just such a world court as a much more pragmatic alternative to the united nations.) while im not implying anything of the sort, one might be forgiven for suspecting bush 'knew" that pesky court might someday cause him problems.
2. on november 1, 2001, bush signed executive order 13233, effectively invalidating the existing executive order (12667) addressing presidential records enacted in 1989 by then-president reagan (after nearly eight years of study by reagan and his advisors). ironically the impetus for the new order seems to have been the imminent release of some 68,000 records of the reagan presidency. in january, 2001, those documents had already passed the twelve-year deadline for public release presumably because they included potentially embarassing information bout reagan's vice president (george hw bush) and others currently in service to the present administration. interestingly enough, the new order provides the vice-president--for the first time ever (one more example of 'creative conservativism' )--with power of executive privilege over his papers. (admittedly that last part undercuts my thesis to some extent since it opens the door to possible collaboration between bush and cheney)