Josh Earnest demands you give his administration credit for its record-breaking transparency

To some degree every White House Press Secretary is shilling for their President, but Josh Earnest has gone the extra mile. Where some might be willing to dodge questions and lie, Earnest is willing to write angry old man letters to the editor op-eds in which he both denies obfuscation AND demands you give his administration props for its record-setting level of transparency. I'll say this for the guy: He has a job to do, and he does it with gusto. Oh sure, that job is shilling for the least transparent, most shameless administration in history, but he's one heck of a shill.

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I mean, just look at the baloney that's flopping out of his mouth:

"Jim Rutenberg criticized the leading presidential candidates for their lack of transparency, but did not acknowledge the important and unprecedented steps that the Obama administration has taken to fulfill the president’s promise to lead the most transparent White House in history. These accomplishments include, but are not limited to, routinely and proactively releasing the name, date and time of nearly every White House visitor. Some will recall that the previous administration went to the Supreme Court to try to prevent the release of these records. President Obama, as a matter of policy, invites White House journalists to cover his formal remarks at fund-raisers, even when they are held in a private home. Previous presidents have granted, at best, intermittent access to such events."

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You read that right. Forget the secret deals, the post-election "flexibility," and the constant battles against FOIA lawsuits. Pay no attention to the leaked memos, the home servers, and the redacted classified documents being thrown around on his Secretary of State's hidden server. Ignore the lost, wiped, deleted, shredded, or damaged data tapes that the IRS had so much trouble finding. According to Josh Earnest, You're lucky. Obama lets you know who's been visiting that house you own. More importantly, the President's fawning media allies are welcome to attend lavish parties thrown by other well-heeled sycophants - and isn't that the hallmark of real transparency? This other stuff, like - oh, I don't know - secret side deals with Iran? That's just noise. If that's not enough, the Obama admin has a website where you can look at Data that they want you to see!

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The Obama administration has also proactively released more than 180,000 data sets on a federal government website named, appropriately enough, Data.gov. This means that reporters and citizens have access to mind-boggling amounts of data — that they may not even have known existed — without having to formally request it.

Oh sure, if you want to get down into the real numbers you'll have to lawyer up and jump through a bunch of hoops nut that's just nitpicking. As always, the mainstream media is just out to get Obama, and Earnest thinks they should be doing a better job of printing the sorts of things they're supposed to print.

If journalists don’t acknowledge steps that the Obama administration has taken to strengthen transparency, then who will?

Who indeed.

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