Among Friends Have an opinion on this column? Submit a Letter to the Editor Click here to return to archives Hallellujah! and pass the adjectives By Tad Bartimus Posted February 2, 2009 It takes a while to sink in: The people's business is being conducted in multiple-syllable words linked by verbs and subjects integrated into sentences that have concise beginnings and endings. Even more remarkably, when the information is dispensed, we understand what it means. For as long as I have been a voter -- through Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43 -- the primary goal of a U.S. government information officer has, as best I can read the tea leaves, been to obfuscate through half-truths (and lies, if required) the workings of our democracy. Like children relegated to the card table at Thanksgiving, we have been treated by the minders who work for us as if we must be shielded from our country's business. Through bogus declarations of war and human and civil rights abuses that threaten the heart of our Constitution, we were "protected" from ourselves by paranoid political gatekeepers who either didn't trust us to know the facts or didn't want us to. But Hallellujah! and pass the adjectives. Since Jan. 20, the children have grown up. Now, by executive order of Barack Obama, all Americans get to sit at the grownups' table. Our new president understands that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. In fact, the new administration is so busy disseminating information through multiple mediums that its intellectual rigor and transparency has given me a mental hangover, my first since Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke Watergate. I can't keep up with the news. In its No. 1 blog post at www.whitehouse.gov that came online just minutes after Obama took the oath of office, Macon Phillips, director of new media for the White House, solicited user input and said that "this online community will continue to be a work in progress as we develop new features and content for you." For me? "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency," Obama said, and legions of his men and women let loose a blizzard of facts that threatens to bury the most devout news junkies under the headlines for the next eight years. At his inaugural press briefing, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs signaled to reporters there would often be no need for his drawled comments because the president's words would soon be forthcoming. Indeed, fewer than two hours later, substantive action (and headline news) poured out in Obama Executive Orders: closure of the Guantanamo detention center within a year; a special task force to review future detainee policy; orders that all interrogations of detainees in armed conflicts follow the Army Field Manual interrogation guidelines. Keeping his campaign promises, the new president also reversed the global gag rule that banned foreign aid for international groups that provide abortions or abortion counseling -- a gag rule initially implemented during the Reagan administration and tossed back and forth as the White House has bounced between Democratic and Republican hands. After months of dithering, the Senate passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared the way for the world's first study on human embryonic stem-cell therapy. As a 24/7 news cycle demands every scrap about the Obama team's actions on the economy, the environment, foreign policy, health care, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, global warming and dozens of other issues, there is a heady awareness that talking heads, too, are becoming irrelevant. Why do we need a Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh when we have the ongoing drama of C-SPAN? Why should there be bombasts when all an inquiring mind in Cleveland or Congo, Kyoto or Kalamazoo has to do if it wants answers is scroll through Facebook, tune in to YouTube, surf MySpace and download instant updates on policy and personnel? Two weeks into the administration, there's a tendency to backslide into trivia and fluff as antidotes to the historic, overarching themes of the inauguration. So the finger hovers over links to a story that Oprah is mortified about her weight gain and is starting a new diet; that Brad and Angelina have snubbed fans while walking the red carpet; that the new season of "Lost" has started. In memory of every White House press secretary who stood at the podium and lied, STOP! Don't go there. Instead, let the fresh air of candor sweep away the stale stench of cover-up in dark corners. After all, these once-tantalizing tabloid tidbits now seem like old hors d'oeuvres, the "childish things" Obama says the time has come to set aside. From now on, the ladies of Wisteria Lane will have to get along without me. I'm too busy boning up on the Paycheck Fairness Act and White House policy on fighting gender violence in the Sudan. It's about damned time.