Transparency

There's a lot of mojo to report out there, from Obama's decision not to release the torture photos as threatened (I agree with Joe Klein that he made the right decision but I still think there need to be investigations, prosecutions and, if those first two fairly result, disbarments convictions) to Obama announcing a July 31st deadline for action on what is now being called "Healthcare Reform" (as opposed to a "National Healthcare Plan" or, horrors, "National Health Insurance"). There's Obama at Arizona State University with typical aplomb and call to service and his derivatives regulatory announcement, and testimony from both a former Bush official and an FBI interrogator that torture not only doesn't work, it's a disaster on many levels. As in FAIL.

But what interests me is this blog announcing video from Budget Director Peter Orszag:



If the Obama Administration leaves us with nothing else, may it please leave us with fiscal transparency, everywhere possible. Orszag understands that blogging is now the fastest and most direct form of mass communication, with little time for artifice or room to avoid accountability. This is the big change of our age, we're all citizen journalists or at least citizen columnists, when we drop a status update on Facebook. Messages of this size have never in the history of the world traveled so far so inexpensively, and so unmediated.

This is the ball to keep your eye on and yes, torture photos do count. The next Administration may be a step backwards in transparency, but I'm thrilled by how much more citizen access to information, even the in-the-mix thoughts of the darn Budget Director himself, we are increasingly receiving under Obama's change, and I hope that we, the citizenry, avail ourselves of the access, like the Congressional Budget Office blog and (yep, still live) the Recovery Act site.

"But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government." -- Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837

Overdue, Andrew.