What Actual "Transparency" Looks Like
In a two-hour period yesterday morning, President Trump sent no fewer than seven tweets, covering trade (most of them), the South Carolina gubernatorial primary, and wrapping up the list with one declaring Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi the faces of the Democrats. Seven tweets.
Barack Obama had a fair number of news conferences, close to two per month according to a site purporting to compare that number. But an Obama news conference was time-constrained, with few actual questions (none challenging), because of his long, drawn-out answers, not always addressing the question asked, meant to turn the press conference into a speech, effectively controlling the time period until the bell rang. Ever the basketball fan, Obama would try to run out the clock without taking a shot.
Donald Trump is not Barack Obama. He is not Obama in so many ways it's really hard to count, but we're going to focus on one of them.
Obama claimed he was going to have "the most transparent administration in history." He really, actually said that, and it's amazing that it wasn't projected onto the White House roof, he was going to be so transparent.
Then he went and lied about Obamacare, keeping your doctor, keeping your insurance company, that Benghazi was about a video, that he found out about Hillary's private email server when the rest of us did, lie, lie, lie. And secretly sent his FBI to go spy on the Trump campaign and let his secretary of state sell our uranium to the Russians, none of which we would have known if Hillary had gotten elected. Really transparent. Surrrrrre.
Well, I mentioned the press conference thing because Donald Trump is really nothing like that. First off, he talks to the press a lot. A real lot. Every trip he goes on, when he walks out to Marine One to helicopter over to Andrews, he stops and engages the press. Every time he does, it is question after question, answer after answer.
Then he'll say "Just two more questions" and answer two more, and then maybe three or four after that. This is of course, is the biggest difference. Obama did not want to answer actual questions, he wanted to make a speech. Donald Trump likes to engage the media.
Not only does he like to engage the media, but particularly now -- a year-plus into his presidency when he has a much better familiarity with all the issues -- he has something to say and points he wants to make. Then after engaging with the press, he will take to Twitter and restate those points, in slightly better-thought-out words.
What is my point? Well, you see, that is actual "transparency." We want to know what the president is thinking, what he wants to do, what he believes, how he reacts to things -- what he is doing. The president sets the tone for what he wants, and hopes that Congress will then fund his initiatives and legislate his goals. If we don't know the platform, we don't know if we agree, right?
We know whether we agree with President Trump on pretty much every issue, because we hear from President Trump on pretty much every issue. He tweets his views, and he makes lots of speeches espousing his views. When he doesn't like something, like high foreign tariffs, we hear about that, too. Donald Trump is an open book, if you simply choose to open it.
For all the complaints, valid or not, there is nothing secretive here. Cabinet and other meetings at the White House often begin with a period open to the press. The press execute their usual boorish behavior, but they're there.
I'm going to try to remember, when ultimately there is a successor, to look for the first media member who describes the 46th president, whoever that will be, and yearns for the Trump Administration and the ability to see what was going on and what the president thinks. Because it is doubtful we will ever have a president like this one again, one whose thinking we know because he tells us. Successors can't possibly be more transparent.
That's not, sadly, a good thing.
Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton