I’m a liberal, and that means that I have to vote for Democrats every two years if I want my votes to count for anything. Of course, I’m more than happy to oblige if it means that things like climate protection, gay rights, immigration reform, and the separation of church and state are furthered or protected. Barack Obama was my choice for president in both of the two prior presidential elections, and I genuinely think that he has real potential to be a decent president. A great leader? No. Missed opportunity, that one. But decent, certainly.
Which is why it confuses me so very much when a new scandal, or any type of bad event, happens to affect the administration. When asked about it by reporters, their answer reliably is “Well, we just heard about that on the news like you did! So we’re still trying to learn about it and we can’t offer you any details.”
How exactly does the government learn about what it’s doing, while it’s doing it, by simply turning on CNN? This absolute lack of accountability, and the urge to simply defer any and all critical questioning, is very Bush-like. It isn’t what I cast my vote for. Why is it too painful to simply say, “We’re aware of the problem and we’re looking into it so that we can provide you with more information.” That sounds astute. That sounds smart. It certainly sounds plausible. You just found out the IRS was doing something shady when you flipped the channel to CNN, despite the issue at hand being investigated thoroughly, repeatedly, by that agency over the past few years? Right.
Barack Obama will go down in history as the greatest medicore president we’ve had in the last ten years. Because he continues to act half-Bush, and half-unaware that he’s the president at all, I don’t think we can really ask more than that. Yes, it’s better than the alternative, but the lack of transparency and straightforward accountability is the same old story, and it’s one I’m quite frankly sick of hearing.