Obama takes goo-goo to new levels?

I've repeatedly bashed Barack Obama's goo-goo tendencies, but this is ridiculous.

An email (PDF) sent to supporters on Friday contains this bizarre promise (my emphasis):

Barack believes that when the government makes a decision that affects your life, you deserve to know about it. When government officials meet with corporate lobbyists, you should be able to watch the meeting. When your tax dollars are appropriated for a government program, you deserve to know where they are going and who requested them.

Anything less is politics-as-usual.

Does Obama realize what it would entail to require that all meetings with lobbyists be open to the public? Who wrote this line? I can't believe that it's vetted policy.

With that said, the email does an effective job of turning Hillary's supposed experience against her:

When asked several direct questions about the release of official records from her time in the White House, Senator Clinton gave a vague and dismissive answer.

These documents, according to Newsweek, include Senator Clinton's "appointment calendar as First Lady, her notes at strategy meetings, what advice she gave her husband and his advisers, what policy memos she wrote, even some key papers from her health-care task force."

It's time to turn the page on this kind of secrecy and restore trust in our government.

If Senator Clinton is going to run on her record, the American people deserve to see it.

Comments

[Rob]

It's interesting that Senator Obama seems to draw a distinction between "corporate" lobbyists and lobbyists for labor or interest groups or purported do-good organizations. If there should be transparency about meetings with Microsoft, there should also be transparency about meetings with the National Education Association and the N.A.A.C.P.

And if Senator Obama is really serious about this kind of transparency, there's nothing stopping him from making public the meetings he and his Senatorial and campaign staff members have with lobbyists. I expect him to start this practice just about as soon as I expect Senator Clinton to cause the release of the records about her activities in the White House.

[Menlo Bob]

Obama can start by retroactively disclosing the substance of his dealings with the guy who helped him buy his house in Chicago. Press disinterest in Tony Rezko be damned. Show us how it's done Barack.