When President Obama became president he promised that there would be more transparency in the White House and government, but the main question to be asked is whether or not the President has kept his promise on making sure our government is more transparent. President Obama made it very clear to the American public that he was going to do away with the old policies under former president Bush and open a new light of transparency, but after looking back of this last year can we say that the President has reached this goal?
I think that President Obama initially started off well with his goal to create more transparency in the government, but as he started to get more and more into his job, he started to pull back on his promise for transparency. I think the first time we saw the President pull back from creating a more transparent government was when the whole issue of water boarding and enhanced interrogation techniques came up right after he was elected. President Obama decided not to release certain photos to the public because of the potential implications they would have had with the safety of our nation.
This was a challenging decision; on the one hand President Obama wanted to create a more open and transparent government, but on the other hand, by releasing these photos there could have been a significant backlash from terrorists who would have been offended by the photos and it could have created a surge of violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and even potentially the United States. This issue was hard for the President to settle, but ultimately I think he made the right decision. Can we really say we want to see these photos even though it would be at the soldiers’ expense? I think by not allowing the public to see certain photos helped our nation because I think that if the photos were released to the public, I really do believe some terrorist groups would try to retaliate against our soldiers or against American citizens. By holding on to the photos it has allowed President Obama to try and keep the levels of violence down over in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Another issue of transparency that we have seen within this last year is over the healthcare debate. The debate over healthcare has been a long and strenuous one, but one thing that has been very frustrating for a lot of Americans is not being able to know what is actually taking place with the bill. Initially, the different forms of the healthcare bill were not being released, and it wasn’t until a day before there would be a Congressional vote, that officials would release the bill to the public. I think this has proven to be a significant problem for our government, because many people are curious about what is being put in this healthcare bill, and if it’s not readily available for Americans to read and respond to their local officials, then it’s not really providing us as Americans chance to participate on what will affect us.
I think President Obama’s intentions are great but if he really wants to gain the public’s approval, he’ll continue to make this government more transparent. He could do this by having Congress release more documentation of the different bills that are currently being discussed earlier before Congressional votes, and he can also do this by letting the public know more of the internal information that is being presented in the White House.
