The opacity of hope: Obama's war on transparency

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

"Democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency." If President Obama still believes those words from his first week in office, then he clearly values some things more than democracy.

Obama invoked executive privilege on Wednesday in refusing to turn over documents related to his Justice Department's notorious Operation Fast and Furious, which deliberately put assault weapons in the hands of Mexican drug cartels as part of a sting, and then negligently lost track of hundreds of them. A Border Patrol agent was killed in 2010, apparently by one of these guns.

Republicans in Congress have tried to investigate this program, but the administration has repeatedly stonewalled them. On Wednesday, as the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee prepared for a vote to hold Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over some documents, the White House announced it would protect the attorney general from scrutiny.

Executive privilege, affirmed by the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Nixon, is historically limited to the president's own discussions. Obama is now extending it to his attorney general. Expanding executive secrecy contravenes Obama's promises on transparency, but it's not the first time the president has betrayed his high-minded rhetoric.

Obama began trumpeting -- and trampling -- transparency during his transition operation. He created the position of "transparency czar," and published the names of many advisers. But the Obama team never mentioned that a telecom executive, former lobbyist and Obama donor named Gerry Salemme worked on the transition as a telecom policy adviser. At least one Obama decision benefited Salemme's company, Clearwire. The transition team never answered press queries about Salemme's role or why it wasn't disclosed.

Only after resisting and getting sued did the White House begin publishing its visitor logs. But a 2010 New York Times article reported that administration officials regularly meet lobbyists away from the White House in an apparent effort to dodge the reporting requirements and disguise lobbyist influence. "Some lobbyists say that they routinely get e-mail messages from White House staff members' personal accounts," the Times reported, "rather than from their official White House accounts, which can become subject to public review.