I’ve often thought it interesting to compare promise versus performance when it comes to election campaign promises. Particularly in issues related to so-called “transparency.”
Every administration I can think of has promised to be more “transparent” than the previous. Of course, every administration promises everything will be better than the last.
It’s also interesting to see how accomplishments by previous administration are adopted by the existing occupants of the presidential office, and how current failures are blamed on the former occupant of the oval office.
What’s that saying again, “Success has a thousand parents, but failure is an orphan.”
But back to transparency.
The Biden administration promised a new era in openness, but it has taken less than two months for promise and performance to seriously diverge.
Whatever you want to call events are the southern border, a “crisis,” and “problem” or an “issue,” the fact is, the administration has shut down access to news and information.
And the followup question, in every such case is, “What are they trying to hide?”
You can be sure, if there weren’t a problem at the border, the administration would be more than happy to host dozens of reporters on air and ground ride-alongs, interviews and press conferences.
And the spin is obvious: when asked about access, press secretary Jen Psaki said officials have been quoted and filmed dozens of times, she failed to mention that access to the camps themselves has been totally blocked. And crucially, any access to where the children are staying is off-limits.
Of course, the argument is made about not invading the children’s privacy. But I’d be willing to bet everyone has seen news video with faces blurred, while maintaining appropriate, but disturbing, looks at the living conditions.
From the earliest days of the republic, presidents have been trying to hide their activities and policies from the public.
Today we hear an endless list of complaints about social media, but those same media outlets are showing us, “presidents can run, but they can’t hide.
I’m Larry Burriss.
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