Obama gets openness award in private

[GOTV]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama has accepted an award for making the government more open and transparent - presented to him behind closed doors. No media coverage or public access was allowed at the ceremony.

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1110ap_us_obama_transparency.html

---

The ironic presidency of Barack Obama

[ixion]

1. Government hypocrisy on display

I'd call it a text book case.

[ClarkUSA]

29. How? The President doesn't have time to make a big public deal out of every award he receives.

[ixion]

31. so that means the press can't even be there?

I mean, he still took time to accept the award.

[ClarkUSA]

32. Why? For the WH, it takes time to set up photo-ops and it's not as if the press wasn't notified.

[ixion]

33. LOL... I guess we have different definitoins of 'transparency'

:rofl:

[CoffeeCat]

2. Ummmm....is this from The Onion?

Seriously.

[eilen]

3. Is this an Onion piece? nt

[rug]

4. Lol

[Donnachaidh]

5. it will go very well with the Peace prize he got, dontcha think?

Gotta get my irony meter fixed.... :rofl:

[Donnachaidh]

6. dupe -- delete.

[davidthegnome]

7. Is this for real?

If so....


LOL

[KoKo]

15. Here's another from the WaPo...Saying he received it in Secret...

Obama Receives Transparency Award in Secret Ceremony
Mar 31 2011 Written by: Dan Evon | Posted in Politics --Washington Post

Obama received the award in recognition of his push to create a more open government. According to the Washington Post, Obama received the award for fulfilling more Freedom of Information requests, for publicly disclosing White House visitor logs, and for posting more government information online for the general public.

The original award ceremony was scheduled to be a public event two weeks ago, but the Japan earthquake and the situation in Libya caused the ceremony to be postponed.

Gary Bass, one of the five transparency advocates that met with Obama, said:

“It’s almost a theater of the absurd to have an award on transparency that isn’t transparent. The irony is that everything the president said was spot-on. I wish people had heard what he had to say.”

http://www.indyposted.com/156596/obama-receives-transparency-award-in-secret-ceremony/

[Here4DaLinks]

39. LINK to actual award and their recommendations, recognitions...

http://www.ombwatch.org/node/11558

Sorry if this was embedded somewhere in the other posts.

[Here4DaLinks]

40. Grrrr, I meant to post that in response to the original post.

:banghead:

[fascisthunter]

8. lol

oy vey

[DeSwiss]

9. IRONY IS NOT DEAD!

- Remember the http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/">Nobel Peace Prize for: "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."? So this makes perfect sense......



K&R

[truebrit71]

10. Is this a joke?

:wtf:

[Nihil]

42. No more than most actions these days.

Nobel Peace Prize?

:rofl:

Transparency Award?

:rofl:

Usual bots applauding it as a good move?

:rofl:

[KoKo]

11. Someone on DU posted he was going to get this Award last week...

and there were some "spicy" comments on the thread. But, this article is so short it doesn't say much expect that the group who awarded it were surprised that he received in in secret. :shrug:

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

12. He can hang it in his war debriefing room next to the nobel peace prize - closed from public viewing

yup

[louslobbs]

13. I was eating a sausage, peppers and Onion wedge when I read this and laughed so hard an Onion shot

out of my nose. I'm ok though, I just shouldn't read certain jokes while I'm eating.
Lou

[luvspeas]

14. Something is strange about all of this...

http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11777

this is the link to the org's own press release. It's odd that the director is "shocked" about the meeting being private, since she was there.

[GOTV]

16. I think she meant she was shocked when she learned it would be in private n/t

[tpsbmam]

17. He can put it on the shelf beside the equally bogus Nobel Peace prize. nt

[FailureToCommunicate]

18. TOMORROW is April Fools Day...

[frylock]

19. can't make this shit up

knr

[blackspade]

20. The irony is painful....

:argh:

[savalez]

21. Another dumb AP story about nuthin'. n/t

[Donnachaidh]

26. another irony deficient comment n/t

[No Elephants]

22. Odd. I usually get a kick out of irony, yet I'm not smiling..

[iwishiwas]

28. leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[struggle4progress]

23. Smart. It sounds like the Administration has a sense of humor about the reward -- and

nobody can accuse him of playing political games around this reward

[freshwest]

24. Reminds me of the 'no ketchup on his hamburger' scandal.

[struggle4progress]

25. Cheese wiz! Can't he get anything right? Doesn't he know using ketchsup is the true sign of manhood?

I sure do hope somebody is keeping a list of this stuff to haul out in 2012!

[freshwest]

27. That list is so long they're running out of paper! Socialist, atheist, muslim, etc.

[Psephos]

34. Your definition of what's politically smart is different from mine.

In my world, you don't hand your opponents the next day's water-cooler joke.

[struggle4progress]

35. "Transparency" concerns actual government actions, not awards from nongovernment actors.

Obama's opponents would futz no matter what he did here: if this had been a press event and photo-op, they would complain he was playing politics

So there wasn't any film footage of Obama getting this award from various nonprofits. Big frickin deal

[Psephos]

37. Another person who's blind to the political value of good optics. n/t

[struggle4progress]

38. Omigolligosh! "Obama is conspiring with open-government activists to reduce government secrecy!"

I predict this will provoke as much lasting debate as the burning question, Does FLOTUS has the right to bare arms?

[Psephos]

41. Not much gunpowder left, I see. :) n/t

[struggle4progress]

43. Here's a really good reason for Obama not to brag about his open government moves right now:

Congressional Republicans are trying to defund

OMB prepares for open gov sites to go dark in May (Fed News Radio)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x595787

So in May and June, we might expect lots of dishonest claims from the other side about how "Obama has shutdown his open government initiatives"

[ClarkUSA]

30. Good. Team Obama has enough to do these days other than stage a lengthy photo-op.

The people sneering at this headline would sneer at any staged ceremonial photo-op as well, I might add.

[struggle4progress]

36. +

[Vinca]

44. This has got to be an April Fool's Day joke. Please tell me it is.