Where Was the Media’s Love for ‘Transparency’ the Last Four Years?

President Obama took yet another vacation last week and while Marie Antoinette Michelle took the kids on a fabulous ski trip in Aspen- her 16th vacation since moving into the White House, Barack went golfing with Tiger Woods in Florida.

But the lavish leisurely pursuits of Barack, the “Man of the People,” are nothing new. The real story here is the press’ response to being left out.

The president kept the press at bay and they went crazy. “Legitimate” news organizations snuck around the links like paparazzi looking to grab a picture of Lindsay Lohan on a bender. And when Obama returned to work, the press was not amused and called for “transparency.”

“The decades-old conflict between the press’s right to know and the White House’s desire for effective messaging reached a flash point over the weekend with the White House Press Corps being excluded from President Obama’s golf outing with Tiger Woods.

‘This isn’t about the president’s golf score or having a beer on the 19th hole,’ said Rick Blum, director of the Sunshine in Government Initiative, a group promoting policies for government accessibility and accountability. ‘This really gets to the president being responsive to the public. Sure the president deserves a vacation, but as president you cannot just disappear for four days.’

For some in the press corps, the question of Obama’s accessibility is especially pointed. Longtime White House correspondent Anne Compton of ABC News told Politico recently: ‘The way the president’s availability to the press has shrunk in the last two years is a disgrace. … This White House goes to extreme lengths to keep the press away.’”

Yes! I agree; it is a disgrace. But where was the outrage when the president began shutting the press (and by extension, the American people) out years ago?

I agree that the president has an obligation to be forthcoming with the press, but truth be told, I am much more concerned with the stonewalling by this administration with regards to the four dead Americans in Benghazi that they have all but chocked up to “Meh. These things happen.”

I am much more concerned with the Justice Department pushing guns into Mexico and blaming gun dealers for violence on the border. I am much more concerned with the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. I am definitely more concerned with the thin premise of executive privilege extended to keep Eric Holder out of handcuffs.

This administration has so much to answer for and yet when we hear the gripes from the press is when they were cut out of the golf weekend?

I agree, in principle, with the media’s outrage. But if they’re going to demand transparency, they should demand transparency first-and-foremost on the issues that truly matter.

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