Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Transparency Update

When we last left Team Obama's adventures in transparency we had begun to define what Democrats mean by the word. Just as the U S Assistant Attorneys General don't usually call them Democrats but prefer terms like suspect and candidate #5, the inquiring mind must not expect precise use of the word transparency. To Team Obama the word means the ability and drsire to hide information about government from the public. In fact, they get an Orwell Award for their total perversion of the word. The MSM all get an honorable mention for making this abomination possible.
Lynn Sweet in the Chicago Sun Times has this to say about Obama and transparency:

"During the presidential primary campaign, then candidate Obama, still an Illinois senator, made a pledge I heard for the first time on Oct. 24, 2007. In a school gym in Dover, N.H., Obama said if president, he would post his meetings on the Internet. That was interesting to me because Obama's Senate staff had been very selective about what Obama Senate-related meetings they disclosed and seemed to be guided by a ''less is best'' policy.
A month after the election, on Dec. 5, John Podesta, a transition co-chair, issued an Obama transparency policy. When it comes to meetings, ''the date and organizations represented at official meetings in the Transition headquarters or agency offices'' would be ''posted on our Web site,'' at www.change.gov.
Indeed, the ''seat at the table'' section states ''on this page, you can track these meetings, view documents provided to the Transition and leave comments for the team,'' but the statement is only partly true.
What is posted are materials -- for example, briefing or position papers -- submitted by groups in connection with a transition meeting. There is no list of meetings on the site, with a meeting defined in the policy as having three or more participants. "

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