December 11th 2008
Open Is Open Only Until It’s Closed
So much for the brave new world of new media in politics, a world in which common people the owners of this country could actually ask questions directly of the people to whom we’ve entrusted the leadership on the nation. Facilitating this ability was a big deal for Obama, and yesterday it was unveiled: Open for Questions, a place where suggestions could be made and others could vote on those suggestions, providing direct input to the president.
It worked for about two minutes.
The doors at Open for Questions slam shut if any Obama fanatic decides a querry is too dicey, and yesterday this question was flagged as being inappropriate:
Given the current corruption charges involving Blagojevich, will ‘serious’ campaign finance reform that takes money completely out of politics through publicly funded elections be a priority in the first term?
Also inappropriate:
In light of the recent corruption scandals (Blagojevich, Rangel, Jefferson, Stevens, etc) that have dominated the political scene,is there any ethics legislation being crafted to actually curb corruption and prevent another wave of nixonian cynicism?
Ben Smith at Politico, who broke this story, points out that citizen participants can express their disfavor for these questions simply by voting “no” on them and therefore casting a vote in support of participatory democracy. That is not enough for those frightening fanatics who believe only the acolytes should be allowed to participate in democracy, and only if they stick to the approved script – these are the ones who flagged entries like this as inappropriate.
Once an entry is flagged, it drops out of public view and can be found only by entering a search word, as Smith did with “Blagojevich.”
Not everything related to Blagojevich is flagged, however. Proudly displayed near the top of the questions this morning was this:
Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor – ideally Patrick Fitzgerald – to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?
I voted no, but I didn’t flag it as inappropriate, because it’s not.
But I had to sign in before I could do so, a clear act of inappropriate government snooping. Where is the ACLU when you need it?
Posted in Obama Drama | 1 Comment » | |
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December 11th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Where is the ACLU when you need it?
[ROFLMAO]
Transparency in government? Only for me. Not for thee.
Move along now. Nothing to see here. These are not the scandals you should be looking for.