So I sorta’ figured that some folks on the left would abandon the notion of keeping the executive accountable and transparent once one of their own took office.
But this op-ed in the
Washington Post by Matt Miller is really something to behold. Miller is a former journalist, who now works at the Center for American Progress. Miller first decries tell-all books by people like George Stephanopoulos and Scott McClellan, then proposes an awful idea:
Quote:
Barack Obama should simply require key advisers and officials to sign a binding contract of confidentiality as a condition of employment. Aides should pledge not to disclose anything they see until, say, five years after their boss leaves office.
The more Miller tries to explain his idea, the more ridiculous he sounds.
Quote:
It’s a shame, of course, that integrity has to be assured rather than assumed, but the political pre-nup is an idea whose time has come. Hollywood celebrities have required such contracts forever, from every cook, nanny and “personal assistant” they hire. Once President-elect Obama and his transition leaders think about this, they’ll realize that there is no downside to a pre-nup and no shame in insisting on one.
The difference between the president and a celebrity is of course that... Jesus, what isn’t different? A celebrity doesn’t work for the country. A celebrity isn’t the most powerful person in the world, with the world’s largest army, nuclear arsenal, and law enforcement force at his disposal. Nondisclosure agreements with celebrities concern things like with whom a celebrity is sleeping, what sort of personal peccadillos a celebrity might have, and other details about the celebrity’s private life. Miller is proposing that public servants on the public payroll promise to never disclose possible abuses of power, law-breaking, or lying by the most powerful person on earth, until well after it’s possible to do anything about it, or prevent further abuses.
Glenn Greenwald, also a man of the left, notes that the blog of Miller’s own organization
recently bemoaned the rising level of secrecy in the federal government,
and adds:Quote:
… it’s staggering that people like Miller, now that there’s a Democratic administration on the horizon, would be plotting and advocating still new presidential powers to further strengthen the wall of secrecy behind which our Government operates. One of the very few reasons that we have learned anything meaningful about what the Bush administration did was because people inside the administration decided, for whatever reasons, to shed light on it, to leak it, and to describe what they saw and heard.
Just imagine the ugly, anti-democratic spectacles that would arise if Miller’s proposal were accepted. If someone like Scott McClellan were about to publish a book that contained embarrassing — though completely unclassified — revelations about what President Obama said or did, then Obama could send lawyers into court seeking to enjoin publication of the book. Or the whistle-blowing author could be sued by the President for damages for having described what he saw. Who could possibly think that’s desirable?
Partisan hacks, that’s who. People whose view of executive power and government accountability wavers depending on which party is in power.
