THUS DO THE PARENTS KICK THE CHICKS FROM THE NEST:

Talking Transparency Isn't the Same as Seeing It Through (Dana Milbank, September 24, 2009, Washington Post)

Somewhere, in a secure, undisclosed location, John Ashcroft is chuckling.

President Obama campaigned on a promise to restore transparency to government. But now the time has come to renew the USA Patriot Act, the bete noire of civil libertarians. When the Obama administration's point man on the legislation came to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, he sounded very much like his predecessors in the Bush administration. [...]

The performance must have been disheartening for Democrats, because [Assistant Attorney General David Kris] was supposed to be one of the good guys. Once a Clinton and Bush Justice Department official, he scolded his former Bush colleagues in 2006 for their "weak justification" of the warrantless wiretapping program.

But if disappointing, Kris's guardedness was to be expected. Obama may have promised new openness, but "so far, the continuities between the Obama and Bush administration overwhelm the differences," says Steven Aftergood, who runs the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists.

Apparently, responsibility makes you grow up fast.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 25, 2009 7:34 AM