Freedom FROM Information Day 
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Candidate Obama's oft-repeated promise: "We will be using cutting-edge 
technologies to create a new level of transparency, accountability and participation for America's citizens."
Many of those who were bound and determined to believe anything their long-awaited change-maker said in 2008 are still unable to see things clearly. Like travelers on a long bus trip to a strange city, arrival euphoria has made them disoriented and easily manipulated. Of course, the rest of us have known from early on, if not from the very outset, that we are being conned.
Anyone who has ever watched a Three Card Monty dealer take a mark to the cleaners at a bus depot knows that just prior to each and every deal the money card is flashed right in the mark's face. Similarly, magicians roll up the sleeves of their rigged tuxedo coats before the sleight-of-hand begins. Transparency, particularly when dramatic attention is called to it, is a big part of what makes a con job work.
Now, after more than two years of un-kept promises -- not the least of which was transparency and universal participation -- the remaining apologists are likely to concoct any sort of praise-fest in an attempt to keep their still-hoodwinked brethren from seeing and admitting to the leadership vacuum and abundant dishonesty that is embodied by the namesake of the most dangerous administration in our nation's history. Sometimes even the best laid plans of lemmings and men are likely to be thwarted by their Dear Leader's inattentiveness and ineptitude.
White House counsel Bob Bauer told the advocates who had already gathered there that he was "really sorry" but that there had been "pressing business" and that the no-show president would have to postpone their meeting until another day. The "meeting" was a Freedom of Information Day (don't bother to look for it in your almanac) conference during which Obama was to be the recipient of an award for, of all things, being a paragon of transparency. But the awardee had conflicting plans -- a Democrat Party function to be held hours later.
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Obama was already getting flak from Republicans and talk radio hosts criticizing him for taking time out to tape an ESPN interview on his official NCAA basketball March Madness tournament bracket. Meanwhile, Libya and other Middle-Eastern nations were burning and the multiple Japanese disasters' body count was steadily rising. Even in the absence of these pressing crises a dedicated leader could find plenty of round-the-clock work. |
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Nero fiddles: Obama fills out his March Madness bracket as multiple crises burn out of control. |
Ironically, the day's Three Card Monty game was busted up by the least likely of beat cops -- the mainstream media. Just an hour before the transparency award was to be bestowed, Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, faced questions from reporters about findings that the administration had failed to meet its goals for responsiveness to Freedom of Information Act requests. Shocking!
"It's quite possible to honor his commitment and at a later time continue to advocate for important openness in government," Gary Bass, founder of OMB Watch and the FOI Day advocate who was to present the award told a McClatchy Newspapers reporter. "Frankly we hope that by doing this it puts even more wind into the sails of transparency." With what else but a left-handed compliment Mr. Bass further expressed his feeling "that commitment is clearly there" with Obama. "But he has a mixed record. I don't think we are yet ready to say he's the most open and transparent administration in history."
So lefties are giving the president an award because??? Presumably, because invisibility trumps transparency in their world. They love a guy who can become invisible except to those who are more concerned about March Madness brackets than international crises and the collapse of our own economy.
Or are they just the unwitting victims of a Three Card Monty dealer trying desperately to win back some of what they've lost to him. Unfortunately, this latest Nobel Peace Prize committee-like shill job gone wrong has caused only a brief suspension of the monty game. They may have to find a new corner or even lay low for a while.
But for some of us it is refreshing, sometimes, to have freedom from information.
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