There’s a lot I like about Obama and have since watching his speech at the 2004 Convention (below) and soon after reading Dreams of My Father. What amazed me most about that book was its openness. Here’s a guy who has chosen a public path where every aspect of his life will be scrutinized talking about race, drugs, poverty. And not just talking about them in generalities, but about his personal feelings and past behaviours: smoking pot, trying cocaine, black power groups, being of mixed race, … I was impressed, somewhat by what he had to say, but even more so by the fact that he was saying it, open, honest. I wanted to see more of this guy.
In the four years since my introduction there have been many more opportunities for me to learn more about Obama and what he wants of and for the world we live in. I can’t say that I’m worried about the details. Details are things that I don’t have the time, energy, or desire to concern myself with. I feel like we are responsible for trying to get to know our elected officials before voting for them and then trust that they do what’s best from there.
This trust depends on, in part, an openness of the official and government in general. So that if a citizen is motivated to check up and see what the official (or government as a whole) has been doing they can easily and quickly get access to the full details. There are situations where this is not possible when the security of our nation is at stake, but that is the only acceptable reason preventing access to information.
To that end Obama has authored a Presidential Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act and completely overhauled Whitehouse.gov providing a blog with feeds for a plethora of subjects (which can be subscribed to en-mass here.) This coupled with plans like the one to create a site for tracking federal government tax expenditures shows that openness is the default, that the only thing required to find information should be to want it and look. That’s change America, and the world, needs. I can only hope that I’m not wrong and that we have it.
2004 Convention
2009 Inauguration
