Well I donât suppose anybodyâs ever done that before. Itâs so crazy, it just might work!
He wasnât talking about government secrecy. He was bragging about his secret superpower.
âAnd after I said âHope and Changeâ I said - ha - I said - hahahaa - just a second - I said, I said - true story - I said âmost transparent administration everâ!â
This, Snowden and continued support of mass surveillence are the only great dissapointment Iâve had with an otherwise remarkable president (imho). I had so much hope. Sigh
Itâs a little late for that, isnât it? If you want a transparent administration, the ONLY chance youâve got is if Bernie Sanders wins.
If HRC wins it will be the most transparent presidency ever since her e-mails will be constant subpoenaed.
This reminds me of Tony Blair and his Freedom of Information Act that he liked so much when he was trying to get elected and rapidly changed his mind about it once he was Prime Minister.
âFreedom of Information Act. Three harmless words. I look at those words as I write them, and feel like shaking my head 'til it drops off. You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop. There is really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it.â
To be fair, the administration doesnât have to be all that transparent to be the most transparent in history.
Hey remember when they planned to host every bill that was due to come across his desk on Whitehouse.gov so people could read and comment on it before he did anything with it?
Although I suppose they made that promise before realizing what an internet comments section is actually like. looks around nervously
I look to one of two theories for his about-face on this subject.
-
The day he moved into the White House, he was told âImplement your transparency initiative, and your family will be dead within 24 hours.â Or,
-
His golfing buddies.
Probably a mix. But every time I start to blame the president, I remember his employees might not all obey him, and the congress certainly doesnât. I honestly believe, for example, he wants Guantanamo closed, but congress has blocked every attempt, secure in the knowledge that nobodyâs going to blame them.
If Obama is really one of the good guys, why hasnât he used the bully pulpit to tell the nation how itâs been taken over by a bunch of fucking pirates?
Waaaaaaayyyy too late.
Maybe heâs waiting for his farewell address.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of
this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We
should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable
citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and
military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so
that security and liberty may prosper together.
The President is on the phone with this guyâŚ
Which Presidents COULD make a credible claim to âmost transparent in history,â I wonder? Are they really getting more secretive or has technology and public scrutiny just made those secrets more apparent?
âAnd these are your reasons, my lord?â
âDo you think I have others?â said Lord Vetinari. âMy motives, as ever, are entirely transparent.â
Hughnon reflected that âentirely transparentâ meant either that you could see right through them or that you couldnât see them at all.
- Terry Pratchett, The Truth
There do seem to be a lot more things being made âclassifiedâ
but itâs hard to say, right? Apparently, a lot of those items arenât really secret in the normal sense and there is as much or more information available in through the news.
Also, our expectations for public scrutiny have definitely changed: We donât just want the records available for copying at an office in DC; we want to be able to download them from the internet in a sensible format. That sort of thing was simply impossible in the past.
