Politics as Usual

Over and over again, people keep telling me that this new president is different from the previous one. I will grant he's smarter, more charismatic and his skin is darker. However, as we near the end of his first six months in office, there seem to be more similarities to the Bush administration than dissimilarities. Take the following article posted on Common Dreams as but one example.

Obama Blocks List of Visitors to White House
Taking Bush's position, administration denies msnbc.com request for logs
by Bill Dedman

The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.

Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.

CREW says it will file a lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.

"We are deeply disappointed," said CREW attorney Anne L. Weismann, "that the Obama administration is following the same anti-transparency policy as the Bush administration when it comes to White House visitor records. Refusing to let the public know who visits the White House is not the action of a pro-transparency, pro-accountability administration."

Groups that advocate open government have argued that it's vital to know the names of White House visitors, who may have an outsized influence on policy matters. The visitor logs have been released in only a few isolated cases, most notably records of visits by lobbyist Jack Abramoff to the Bush White House, and in the "filegate" investigation of the Clinton White House.

The Obama administration is arguing that the White House visitor logs are presidential records - not Secret Service agency records, which would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act...

Lao Tzu would not be pleased. In verse fifty-eight he stated,

Happiness is rooted in misery.
Misery lurks beneath happiness.
Who knows what the future holds?
There is no honesty.
Honesty becomes dishonest.
Goodness becomes witchcraft.
(emphasis added)

From my perspective, the problem with the tact taken by both the Bush and Obama administrations is that each is attempting to place themselves above the law. A chief executive above the law is dangerous, regardless of how erudite or good-looking he may be.

Such a position also permeates society in a negative way. Following the president's lead, others will want to climb to the top of their industry, social club, local power structure or family so they too can invoke the "above the law" argument. Within a short period of time, it becomes accepted practice and the reward that too many people will desire. Such people will employ whatever methods -- ethical or not -- to win this coveted prize.