Obama's glass house.

POLITICS | Obama's push for Clinton to disclose her first lady papers raises questions about his own transparency

WASHINGTON -- White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who is making government transparency a centerpiece of the latest phase of his campaign, does not always practice what he preaches when it comes to his own business.

Obama is accusing chief rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) of being secretive and slowing down the release of her official first lady papers in the Clinton Library, documents that could help buttress -- or erode -- her claim of presidential experience.

Since last Tuesday's Democratic debate in Philadelphia, Obama has been stepping up his criticism of Clinton on the matter of transparency, which makes it timely to look at his own record.

Obama deserves credit for pushing for a law, signed last year, creating a searchable database containing federal contracts. He also has been a champion of new Senate ethics rules to force more disclosure about bundlers who help raise campaign cash. He has pushed for the creation of a Congressional Ethics Enforcement Commission, to make it easier for the public to pursue ethics complaints.

Sometimes Obama has come late to the game. He did not stop taking rides on subsidized corporate jets until the week he was tapped to be the Democrats' chief spokesman on ethics in January 2006. In 2005, Obama took 23 such private aircraft flights, some to attend fund-raisers he headlined. In 2006, Obama led the fight to ban lawmakers from taking cut-rate private air travel.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/635462,CST-NWS-sweet05.article

any other candidate.

I guess the fact that he's merely the best instead of perfect makes him a hypocrite to hacks like Sweet.

:shrug:

is that he doesn't have much of a career to hide.

the best of any Democratic candidate, on these issues.

If that's your idea of a hard-hitting attack, bring it on.

I think the hypocrisy though speaks for it's self. Since this is what he seems to be talking about this week.

record of all the Presidential candidates to push a reform agenda?

It's hypocrisy for Obama to demand Clinton release her records, when he has not done so himself. It's hypocrisy for Obama to demand that the future President post records of all meetings, when he does not do so himself. It's hypocrisy for Obama to brag about identifying fundraisers, when he doesn't give so much as a city or state to attach to the name.

1) The White House National Archives, 8 years after the Clinton administration, is not the same as the archives of an Illinois State Legislator--for all we know the Illinois documents don't exist.

2) Obama WOULD be a hypocrite if he criticized other Senators for not disclosing their current meetings. He is stating what he would do as President.

3) He has done more to identify fundraisers than others. It is not hypocrisy for him to fall short of perfection.

They're politicians. Why do we pretend they're good people? Why do we act surprised when they're not? We don't elect them to be moral; we elect them to vote well and push for our interests. And both Clinton and Obama do a fine job of that.

motivated by partisanship

****the Obama transparency record is lacking.

• • An Obama spokesman, Ben Labolt, last week declined to say where Obama's records from his years in the Illinois State Senate are located. There is no law mandating the state to archive the records. The records from Obama's office -- if he kept them -- would potentially show appointments with lobbyists, policy memos, meetings, etc.

• • Obama has supported more earmark disclosure to bolster government transparency. Last June, Obama disclosed the earmarks he requested for Illinois and national interests. However, his office, after repeated requests since June, has yet to disclose earmarks Obama sought in 2006, before he was running for president.

• • Obama does list the names of hundreds of bundlers -- people committed to raising at least $50,000 for the campaign -- on his Web site. He brags about the disclosure on the stump.

But that's literally all Obama does, list a name. No cities or states, information that is available to his campaign. Some names are well known because the bundlers are celebrities or longtime activists. But it's a big country, and there are more than one Bob Clark and Lou Cohen. Just listing a name does lip service to meaningful disclosure.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, in a memo sent last week after the debate, said Obama is "setting a new standard of openness in campaign fund-raising." That's because the bar is very low.

• • Obama's campaign has refused to identify the biggest bundlers, people who are raising at least $200,000 for him and are given membership in his National Finance Council. Obama, as all major candidates, declines most of the time to disclose details about most fund-raising events.

• • During a town hall meeting last month in Dover, N.H., Obama pledged that he would post all meetings he would hold as president on the Internet. As a senator, Obama has never done that.