I posted a bit on this a couple weeks ago, but given how the “most transparent administration ever” keeps smearing sunblock all over its transparency, further comment seems merited. Michelle Malkin has a good post up today on the subject, which is particularly notable for this trenchant observation:
From Day One, President Obama has demonstrated a rather self-serving selectivity when it comes to transparency. . . .
Openness in government is fine if it hurts America’s reputation, but not if it harms Obama’s.
She adds, “hostility to transparency is a running thread through Obama’s cabinet,” citing serious issues with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ron Sims, as well as David Axelrod. The problem, however, starts at the top, with the president’s willingness to go back on his word whenever it suits him:
President Obama set the tone, breaking his transparency pledge with the very first bill he signed into law. On January 29, the White House announced that Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act had been posted online for review. One problem: Obama had already signed it—in violation of his “sunlight before signing” pledge to post legislation for public comment on the White House website five days before he sealed any deal.
Obama broke the pledge again with the mad rush to pass his trillion-dollar, pork-stuffed stimulus package full of earmarks he denied existed. Jim Harper of the Cato Institute reported in April 2009: “Of the eleven bills President Obama has signed, only six have been posted on Whitehouse.gov. None have been posted for a full five days after presentment from Congress . . .”