Transparency and the Prince

Governmental transparency is the bugaboo of every conspiracy nut in the world. As citizens of a republic, we want as much transparency as we can get: we want it in the tax code, we want it in the legislative process, and we want it so badly from our president that we unsuccessfully try to introduce legislation to rebuild the White House entirely out of glass. At the same time, it is the very nature of government to hide its actions, to tax and spend secretively, legislate obscurely, and work behind a fine large wall of security. The maioc of Western Democracy is that we've managed to find a way to balance the government's need for secrecy and the people's need for transparency in a way that everyone can live with.

Personally, I think that this Administration is ridiculously obscure and outrageously oblique. They have managed -- somehow -- to draw the curtain in front of any number of ugly little blemishes and have the people believe that they're being transparent. It is remarkable what can be gotten away with by using the excuse "we're fighting a global war on terrorism." Perhaps the next time I'm pulled over for speeding, and the cop asks me if I know why I was pulled over, I'll bust that one out. "Sir, I'm sorry... I know I was speeding, but you might be unaware that I am personally waging a global war on terrorism. Maybe I was speeding, maybe I wasn't. Either way, you've got to admit that the world is a better place because Saddam Hussein is out of power." This strategy, apparently, should work.

Only two paragraphs in, and already I'm straying from the point. Let's turn this ocean-liner back to the issue of Iraq for a second, and to the observation made by G-Money about the disparate remarks made by Cheney and Rumsfeld about the current state of the insurgency. One says that it's in its last throes. The other says it will last ten to fifteen years. What are these people doing? Transparent or not, this Administration has succeeded in doing a fine job of elevating the practice of ass-covering to a highly-refined art.

Look, here's what the citizenry of our nation and the world need from the Smug Ones at the White House. They need to make G-Money's well-worded, succinct apology and admission, and then they need to give the military whatever it needs to kick ass, take names, and come home. People much better informed than myself have recently observed that we need more manpower in-country, and I can't help but think that's true. Why should somebody like my oldest friend 1Lt. Schaffer have to lead a platoon into a burning building, vastly outnumbered, by insurgents, and single-handedly take the place over? Why, when he calls for backup, should it arrive four hours later in the form of National Guardsmen from South Dakota? That's another matter entirely, but it's a tragedy that nobody wants to take responsibility for.