Secret Transparency
It’s been a little over 5 months since Obama took office. Now that he’s approaching half a year as our commander-in-chief, I feel as if we can begin to judge his actions thus far and project his future measures. I have been met with much dissent upon my criticism of Obama, usually from his supporters who claim I shouldn’t expect him to solve all of our problems within a few measly months. For those who use this excuse, I would like to point out that this type of argument is a red herring that would be very characteristic of the typical Bush supporter.
I am, of course, not expecting him to fix all of our country’s problems within 6 months. To be honest, judging by his rhetoric and campaign promises, I never expected Obama to fix anything. However, very complex problems, such as the ailing economy, aside, we can begin to evaluate Obama based on the approaches he has been taking compared with his promises.
Let’s look at Obama’s obviously abandoned promise of transparency. Obama, it was believed, was supposed to bring forth a “new era” of openness to our government. He was a big critic of Bush and his secret energy meetings that he held with oil executives at the White House. Well, his supporters were certainly shocked a few days ago when Obama rejected a Freedom of Information Act request to provide public service logs of, you guessed it, the identities of oil executives who visited him in the White House. In fact, as Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional law and civil rights litigator who now writes for salon.com, puts it, “almost from the very first day that he got into office, Obama has actively embraced all of the radical secrecy doctrines of the Bush Administration that enabled them to do anything they want without anyone knowing about it.” For example, Obama was extremely critical of the Bush Administration’s use of the State’s Secrets Privilege, a doctrine that Bush claimed gave the government the right to throw out entire court cases they “claimed” involved matters too secretive to divulge. However, Obama has used the same doctrine in every court case thus far dealing with matters such as illegal wiretapping, torture, and illegal detention in the very same way Bush used it.
Of course, what the State’s Secrets Privilege actually means is that if the government does something totally illegal, they can prevent any court from prosecuting them if they claim the information is a government secret. This gives the government the right to break the law. And, judging by the string of court cases over the last 5 months, Obama totally believes the government has the right to break the law, just as Bush believed.
Obama also, during a speech ironically made in front of the original US Constitution, is calling for a new legal system where people could be held for prolonged detention without trial. Therefore, he is closing Guantanamo and moving it somewhere else with an entire new legal system approved by Congress for the sole purpose of “preventative detention.” Some are happy because Obama at least promised to work with Congress on this issue, something Bush never did. However, The Washington Post recently reported that Obama, in fear that Congress could stall his plans, is now drafting an executive order that would reassert the president’s authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects without charges indefinitely. Wasn’t it democrats who were demonizing Bush for this same policy? Let’s not also forget that while Obama is adamant about closing Guantanamo, he has no objection to the illegal detention and torturing that are going on at Bagram airbase. He actually has supported suspending the right of habeas corpus to prisoners at Bagram.
Obama has also begun resorting to childish clichés in order to defend his atrocious policies. He recently mocked private insurance companies for their fear of being unable to compete with a government run insurance company. He sarcastically stated that if their companies offer such good service, why should they be afraid of a government run company when they claim government is always less efficient. This type of third grade logic is what I would expect coming from a high school dropout, but not from the president. Obviously the government could not offer prices lower than a private company without subsidizing their certain losses with taxpayer money. The government would crowd out the market because private companies can’t steal money from 300 million people to reimburse their losses due to prices politically set below market levels. Either Obama is clueless as to business situations, or he believes Americans are retarded.
The time has certainly come for citizens to call Obama out on his horrible mistakes. How long must we put up with this monarch-type power coming from the Executive?
