There's a fantastic transcript of today's Obama cabinet meeting flying around via e-mail right now. A couple things of note. First, the man seems to be able to toss off Bartlett's-worthy remarks like a Denny's fry cook whipping out Grand Slams ("Order up!"). In the course of introducing tough new lobbying rules, which should stop the ridiculous door-spinning we all got used to during the Bush days, he said this:
It's not about advancing your friends or your corporate clients. It's not about advancing
an ideological agenda or the special interests of any organization. Public service is,
simply and absolutely, about advancing the interests of Americans.
Sure, plenty of politicians could say that. But Bush never did. And if he did, the evidence would have proven him a liar.
Also, Obama turned the Freedom of Information Act back into the Freedom of Information Act. Under the Bush rules, government officials were ordered to err on the side of secrecy. If a document wasn't already public, there were almost no good reasons to make it so. Obama just changed that.
For a long time now, there's been too much secrecy in this city. The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is now over. Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information but those who seek to make it known.
Those two items aren't campaign promises. Obama just signed the Executive Orders. They're done.
Now it's up to us to hold him to it.
If a document wasn't already public, there were almost no good reasons to make it so. Obama just changed that.
Posted by: buy cheap viagra | February 17, 2010 at 11:58 AM