Transparent as mud

I was hoping someone would ask the question.

Christi Parson of the Washington Bureau of the Chicago Tribune obliged.

According to a transcript of Wednesday night’s presidential press conference on attempts to “reform” health care, Parsons asked:

“During the campaign, you promised that health care negotiations would take place on C-SPAN and that hasn't happened, and your administration recently turned down a request from a watchdog group seeking a list of health care executives who have visited the White House to talk about health care reform.

“Also, the TARP inspector general recently said that your White House is withholding too much information on the bank bailout. So my question for you is, are you fulfilling your promise of transparency in the White House?”

So how did the president who promised from Day One the most transparent administration in the history of the galaxy do?

Let’s mark his scorecard 1 for 3.

“Well, on the list of health care executives who visited us, most of the time you guys have been in there taking pictures, so it hasn't been a secret,” President Obama said. “And my understanding is we just sent a letter out providing a full list of all the executives. But, frankly, these have mostly been at least photo sprays, where you could see who was participating.”

Yes, but only after stalling and invoking “presidential communications privilege” and only after the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, threatened a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, did the White House comply by releasing the list, which included the president of the American Medical Association, the heads of American Hospital Association, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Kaiser Permanente, Cedars Sinai, Merk and others.

As for everything being on C-SPAN, the president performed a tap dance and offered a nonresponse:

“With respect to all of the negotiations not being on C-SPAN, you will recall in this very room that our kickoff event was here on C-SPAN and, at a certain point, you know, you start getting into all kinds of different meetings. Senate Finance is having a meeting, the House is having a meeting. If they wanted those to be on C-SPAN, then I would welcome it. I don't think there are a lot of secrets going on in there.”

And on the TARP question, he gave an I’ll-get-back-to-you-on-that answer, claiming his administration was more open than past ones, but seemly unaware of the testimony earlier this week in front of a House committee by Neil M. Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Barofsky said the Treasury Department refused to even ask banks what they were doing with bailout money. That makes transparency pretty difficult to attain.

“And the last question was with respect to TARP,” Obama said. “I _ let me take a look at what exactly they say we have not provided. I think that we've provided much greater transparency than existed prior to our administration coming in.

“It is a big program. I don't know exactly what's been requested. I'll find out, and I will have an answer for you.”

Transparent as mud.