Transparency: President Obama’s Perpetual Foe

On 01.29.10, In Transparency, By markboabaca

President Obama’s campaign promised transparency before he reached the Oval Office.

Unfortunately, when he made the transition from candidate to president, he checked transparency at the door.  You would almost get the impression that President Obama hated transparency given the amount of times he has chosen not to be transparent.

Some examples:

On healthcare “Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign — to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN “so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.” Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it’s acted upon.”

Let the sun shine in on a few more of President Transparency’s glowing first year:

Obama Blocks Visitor Log Disclosure

HHS helped hide Jonathan Gruber’s status as a paid health care shill

Fed Seeks to Block Release of Bank Bailout Secrets

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Fox News Still “not a traditional news organization” Says Anita Dunn’s Replacement

On 01.19.10, In Acting Stupidly, Fox News, Thin Skin, By markboabaca

With the departure of Anita “Mao” Dunn as the White House communications czar, ahem, director, Dunn’s replacement, Dan Pfeiffer, tells the New York Times that he will carry the same message about Fox News that his predecessor did.

From NewsBusters:

During a Monday video interview with the New York Times’ The Caucus blog, the new White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, joined his predecessor Anita Dunn in declaring that Fox News Channel is not a news organization: “I have the same view of Fox that Anita had, which is that Fox is not a traditional news organization.”

Responding to a question by Times reporter Jeff Zeleny about Dunn’s feud with Fox, Pfeiffer explained: “They [FNC] have a point of view. That point of view pervades the entire network both the opinion shows, like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, but also through the newscasts during the day.” He went on to add: “We don’t feel an obligation to treat them like we would treat a CNN or an ABC or an NBC or a traditional news organization. But there are times when it would make sense to communicate with them and appear on the network.”

MediaBistro.com’s TVNewser obtained a response from Fox News to Pfeiffer’s comments: “Obviously new to his position, Dan seems to be intent upon repeating the mistakes of his predecessor… and we all remember how well that turned out.”

Video of Dan Pfeiffer’s response from Breitbart.tv here.

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President Obama Doesn’t Like … Trucks? (Even if it’s a GM truck?)

On 01.18.10, In Cash For Clunkers, Health Care, John Kerry, By markboabaca

On Sunday President Obama voiced his apparent displeasure with the fact that Scott Brown drives a truck.  President Obama let people know that George Bush drove a truck, and “look where that got us”.



I wonder if President Obama is aware that Scott Brown drives a … GM truck?

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Who Should Be Number One On Obama’s Hit List?

On 01.11.10, In Barack Obama, By markboabaca

Of the many millions of people who have made it to President Obama’s unofficial “hit list” perhaps the top entry should be reserved for the folks who write his speeches.

While it would be easy to point fingers at President Obama’s telemprompter, or TOTUS, the reality is that there is someone who provides TOTUS with his words.  That person(s) is President Obama’s speech writers.

Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com has increased his reader base with a humorous daily section called the Obamateurism of the Day.  An Obamateurism refers to any of the many mistakes or foul-ups President Obama makes when he reads the prepared material from his teleprompter, or when he veers off script and tries to ad lib.

Readers are given the opportunity each week to vote on the Obamateurism of the Week, and at the end of the year they can vote on the Obamateurism of the Year.

The Obamateurism of 2009 was, well, I won’t spoil it for you.  You can read it here.

I would recommend that President Obama direct his criticism at the folks who write his speeches, but then I wouldn’t get the opportunity to catch up with my daily dose of Obamateurisms.

Rock on, speech writers!

 
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Obama’s Plan to Silence Dissent

On 11.30.09, In FCC, Fairness Doctrine, Post Partisan President, Thin Skin, By markboabaca

From The American Spectator:

There is no shortage of conspiracy theories that elicit a chuckle or the rolling of eyeballs. “September 11th was an inside job.” “The war on Iraq was launched to enrich Halliburton.” “AIDS was created to annihilate the black community.” But should we be alarmed when a theory appears plausible in an age when the previously unthinkable occurs on a regular basis?

“When the heavy hand of the State is imposed on the press, all of us lose,” Barack Obama told a group of Kenyan journalists during a 2006 trip to Africa. He continued, “The media does not have a formal role in the Government, but it serves a critical function in providing information to the public so that they can hold the Government accountable.”

That was then and this is now. Apparently, a present-day President Obama has a different view — a wild-eyed view — of a free press than did a Senator Obama now that some outlets hold him, his administration and his political allies accountable.

Instead of having the government decide which program merited “the other side” of the argument, what if there was a plan to shut down the free component of talk radio and broadcast TV?

More than 150 bureaucrats at the Federal Communications Commission are in the final stages of planning how to deliver broadband Internet to the estimated 3-6 million people who do not have access. A formal plan will be unveiled in early 2010 but one proposal being discussed is deeply alarming as it threatens First Amendment freedoms.

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) introduced a measure this year that would allow the president to disconnect private broadband users during an undefined national cyber emergency.

Another provision of the bill is to federally-license certain information technology professionals making it illegal for those not holding such a license to access any IT systems. Obviously, the most efficient way to control the nation’s broadband platforms is to control those who operate them.

Connecting the dots in this fashion would not have been contemplated as recently as one year ago. But today, no one is rolling their eyes.

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