During his presidential campaign, there were few subjects Barack Obama was more unequivocal about than transparency. He committed to bringing the sunlight, and bringing it hard — five days guaranteed for legislation posted online, debates held openly on C-SPAN, online access to all aspects of stimulus projects, and so on.
The news this week, of course, is an indication that these were all just words:
President Obama has abolished the position in his White House dedicated to transparency and shunted those duties into the portfolio of a partisan ex-lobbyist who is openly antagonistic to the notion of disclosure by government and politicians.
Handing Norm Eisen’s duties off to DNC lawyer and political hack Bob Bauer is just one of the more audacious aspects of this decision. So The New Ledger’s Brad Jackson and I sat down for a chat with Jim Lakely of the Heartland Institute about the nature of the transparency joke, the president’s technology policies, and the future of broadband and net neutrality.
[audio: http://newledger.com/podcasts/welcometotheknow26.mp3]
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