The Party of Transparency?!?

The party of transparency sure has been opaque since the democrats have taken over. President Obama campaigned vigorously on the platform that he would not hide things from the American people and his lap dogs in Congress panted their agreement during the whole process. They decried Bush's tactics of keeping national security items top secret and said the American people had the right to know what was going on. So where is all this alleged transparency? Let's take a look at just a few of major issues since the beginning of the year.

1. Democrats repeatedly met behind closed doors and prevented republican input on the gigantic stimulus bills that have passed since Obama took over. In fact, the $787 billion stimulus package was passed despite the democrats' refusal to post the plan online for the viewing public at least 48 hours prior to the vote, as they promised. Not a single member of congress had time to read the entire bill before voting on it. Doesn't seem very transparent to me.

2. President Obama recently decided to declassify top secret CIA memos outlining "enhanced interrogation techniques" under the auspices of transparency. However, former VP Dick Cheney immediately came out asking that the rest of the memos be declassified--you know, the ones that prove the techniques actually worked. Strangely, the parts of the released memos that discussed the effectiveness of the techniques were redacted due to the "normal editing process." Seriously! My guess is--and this is just a hunch--President Obama and the democrats were much more interested in villifying President Bush than being open and honest with the American people. Why else would they filter those memos for us? The former CIA director seems to agree with me, saying, “For the first time in my experience we’ve crossed the red line of properly protecting our national security in order to gain partisan political advantage.”

3. In an effort to convince the world that global warming is a fact rather than paranoid opinions at worst and paranoid theory at best, the democrats in the House are holding hearings this week on climate change. The democrats' star witness--Al Gore. Since the democrats were allowed to bring in a "star witness" it's only fair the republicans be allowed to do the same, right? Wrong! Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex) brought in a well-known global warming skeptic (Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher) from the UK to testify alongside Mr. Gore. However, as soon as Monckton's plane landed, he was informed his joint appearance invitation had been rescinded.

Mr. Obama...Democratic party...where is the transparency? What are you so scared of? How about you allow true public debate on the issues and quit hiding behind your power? If you're so interested in being so open and honest with the people, then quit lying to us and quit suppressing opposing viewpoints. As far as I can tell, there has been no constitutional amendment transforming our country into a dictatorship or tyranny. If your ideas really are best, then put them up against opposing ideas and prove it and stop being a bunch of cowards!