President Obama finally and quietly accepted his “transparency” award from the open government community this week — in a closed, undisclosed meeting at the White House on Monday.
The secret presentation happened almost two weeks after the White House inexplicably postponed the ceremony, which was expected to be open to the press pool.
This time, Obama met quietly in the Oval Office with Gary Bass of OMB Watch, Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive, Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight, Lucy Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and Patrice McDermott of OpenTheGovernment.org, without disclosing the meeting on his public schedule or letting photographers or print reporters into the room.
“Our understanding going into the meeting was that it would have a pool photographer and a print reporter, and it turned out to be a private meeting,” Bass told POLITICO. “He was so on point, so on target in the conversation with us, it is baffling why he would not want that message to be more broadly heard by reporters and the public interest community and the public generally.” “This president has demonstrated a commitment to transparency and openness that is greater than any administration has shown in the past, and he’s been committed to that since he ran for President and he’s taken a significant number of measures to demonstrate that,” Carney said in a testy exchange with Fox News reporter Wendell Goler on March 16.
“I don’t feel moved today to say ‘thank you, Mr. President,’” said Steve Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. But he said he understands the award to be “aspirational,” in recognition of Obama’s potential to do more on the transparency front.
“And in that sense, one could say it resembles the award at the Nobel Peace Prize,” Aftergood said. “It’s not because Obama brought peace to anyone but because people hoped he would be a force for good in the world, and maybe that’s the way to understand this award.”
And a well-deserved award it is.
More from Washington Post “Crazy Stupid”
wait..
Where is The Onion link?
-s
“at least isn’t a total sell out..”
Yea, I’m so glad he didn’t sell out to GE, UAW, Big Pharma, Insurance Industry, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, …
Yea, he didn’t sell out.
I’m Hope for a big Change in 2012.
Like I said, vote for the person who won’t lie to you. What we got was the biggest liar of the bunch. He lied to get into office and hasn’t stopped. Case in point, look at his last Presidential Address.
So, in other works who HASN’T Obama sold out to? Specifically. I’m having a hard time coming up with a specific example.
I’m so transparent you can see right through me.
The award was an empty picture frame.
Yes, but he did not reveal his secret identity.
Great pic. The guy is so transparent that you can only see his shadow work.
It can be said that the more things change the more they stay the same and that bull .. baffles brains or in this case the vast majority of American citizens
Lord help us all
Seems like a bad joke.
He’s the most under-reported hypocrite around. Strange how that happens.
“And despite the snub, they stand by their decision to grant Obama the award, even if, as Bass put it, the president subsequently shot himself in the foot for keeping the meeting private. ”
He’s just one taco short of a Mexican dinner.
I go with #6.
Think about this:
Somebody (from the open government community, no less) gives Obama a transparency award. Obama doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it, so he doesn’t have a ceremony.
This means of course that the Tea Baggers make a big deal about the lack of transparency.
Obama can’t win. Neither can the open government community.
Think about it; your heads will spin.
#33 —- yes my head is spinning. 1984 double speak is all around us. Obama stuff is less transparent than previous administrations because he hasn’t delivered on promises to address the transparency issue and indeed has created edifices (czarships) thru which he can hide his influence. Obama gets a transparency award for being less transparent than ever.
Is your head spinning?
#34 You mean those same czars that every president appoints?
He is not living up to his transparency promises, for sure, but can we let go of the “Czars are a communist plot” FUD?
# 14 McCullough – I was sure it was an April Fool pranks, Now I’m really confused.
Oh, cut the fake outrage, you conservatives.
You didn’t care when Dick Cheney huddled with Enron, B.P. and only god knows who else to secretly WRITE GOVERNMENT ENERGY POLICY.
That’s an insult to democracy and you guys cheered it.
Nobody cares (not even you) that Obama accepted some unknown award in a private ceremony. He probably get about three of those a week.
All these reporters are MK-ULTRA’d.
Good to see that GregAllen agrees that Obama is no better than Dick Cheney.
Maybe this guy would be better.
“Because they know that Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin is going to draw a lot of the women vote away from the Democrat Party. They are scared to death of that, if they were to run and get the nomination. They are doubly scared that a real black man might run against Barack Obama.”
http://realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/03/31/herman_cain_media_scared_that_a_real_black_man_may_run_against_obama.html
This next presidential election should be REAL entertaining!!