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1919 - Fire destroys abandoned second Southern Hotel, built 1878 in Newhall (corner Main & Market) [story]
Second Southern Hotel


The Real Side
| Tuesday, Apr 22, 2014

joemessinamugJay Carney recently said, “this White House is the most transparent White House ever.” Wow. Really? Does he live in one of the states where you can easily get marijuana? Does he have a different definition of “transparent” than the rest of the planet?

Maybe he is using the Obama unabridged dictionary that defines words based on the meaning needed at the time? Maybe he really meant to say the “least transparent” White House? Or maybe he is just one very confused man.

If comments like, “you can keep your doctor,” his proposal wouldn’t “increase our deficit by a single dime,” there’s “not even a smidgeon of corruption” in the IRS, Benghazi was because of a bad video, and so many more things are “true” according to the White House definition of “true,” then I guess Carney’s definition of “transparency” must also be “true.”

Obama has been honest with us with about almost nothing he has said. The more I look into it, the more I see as problematic.

Carney stated several times that there were no major issues with the Obamacare website. All sites have issues when first launched, and everything would be fine at launch time. Contractors and subcontractors for the website all said they had informed the administration plenty of times that work was not complete, and many areas were yet untested, security being one of them. They wanted a beta-test period and not a simple go-live date.

After being in the web and technology industry 20-plus years, going live without a beta test never works. Sites need to be stress-tested, traffic-tested and security-tested. Contractors knew there were issues – major issues – and yet, no one ever said a word to the American public. Transparency?

Obama stated many times that we would be able to keep our doctors. We have it in speech after speech after speech. When confronted about it, he said, “What I said, or meant was that if your doctor is in the plan, you can keep it.” Many emails that have surfaced, and many close to the inside, have said this was known early on, before the vote, and they chose not to share it with the people. Transparency? Nope.

From Day One of the IRS scandal, they told us it was a couple of rouge agents in Chicago or Ohio or in Never-Neverland who did this, and besides, it was only done to a small group, so no big whoop. Now we see they knew before we did that Lois Lerner and other brass at the IRS, not to mention Elijah Cummings and God-only-knows who else was involved, and not in a good way. We were told we had received access to all the emails for the IRS case. Now we find out that’s not true. Where does most of the information come from? The attorney general’s office. Where does the AG’s office get its marching orders? The White House.

It’s not transparency when you admit to it after you’ve been caught or questioned.

The AG’s office knew this was going on well before the investigation started. When the president said he has instructed Holder and his administration to do what it takes to get to the bottom of the IRS scandal and to cooperate with Congress, once again, it’s a backwards meaning. Transparency is when all parties get to see what’s going on. Unfortunately, only the White House knows what’s real.

Just before the holiday season, the White House issued a press memorandum saying the press would no longer be allowed into special meetings and many meetings with heads of state. It said all information and pictures as to the content and meaning of the meetings would be furnished by the White House. Huh? Thank God the Democrats and liberals saw the writing on the wall. It’s the same wall the conservatives have been writing on for five years. They raised so much noise the White House backed down. Transparency?

After being asked repeatedly for visitor logs to be released, the White House finally released them. But is that the transparency they promised – where they have to be hounded to do what they’ve said they’ll do? Do we really have to press that hard to get what should have been made public from the beginning? That’s like saying I’m not a smoker; I’m down from 40 cigarettes a day to 39.

Don’t take my word for it. Journalists and reporters for highly reputable news organizations feel the same way.

Veteran New York Times reporter James Risen recently stated: “The Obama administration is the greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered in at least a generation.”

New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson stated: “This is the most secretive White House that I have ever been involved in covering, and that includes — I spent 22 years of my career in Washington and covered presidents from President Reagan on up through now, and I was Washington bureau chief of the Times during George W. Bush’s first term.”

CNN political reporter Bob Franken (who was with CNN for many years and is now with MSNBC) stated in an interview: “Every administration tries to manipulate the press. But this is the most hostile to the media that has been in United States history. … I say most hostile is because of the Justice Department moves that they’ve made against the press. Obviously they have a contempt for the journalistic process. Those of us who are in journalism, of course, believe that it is vital if you’re going to have informed electorate as opposed to one that’s been propagandized.”

One more for the record: “Whenever I’m asked what is the most manipulative and secretive administration I’ve covered, I always say it’s the one in office now,” Bob Schieffer, CBS News anchor and chief Washington correspondent, told me. “Every administration learns from the previous administration. They become more secretive and put tighter clamps on information. This administration exercises more control than George W. Bush’s did, and his before that.”

These statements can be found (the same way I found them) on the Internet. They are from those covering the news from the left and the right. The left is seeing the handwriting on the wall, and it’s not pretty.

Transparency. This administration couldn’t find it if you gave it to them marked on a paper bag, set on fire, and put in from of them.

 

Joe Messina is host of The Real Side (TheRealSide.com), a nationally syndicated talk show that runs on AM-1220 KHTS radio and SCVTV [here]. He is also the current president of the Hart School Board. His commentary publishes Mondays.

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