Most of us know the story of Pandora’s Box. Girl gets box and is told not to open it. Girl opens box. Much badness occurs.
I’m sure some government officials are feeling that way about the Citizen’s Briefing Book. Check out the opening page here, where some of the people in charge give responses to the more popular issues. Nothing strange about that – until you dig a bit deeper and find out how to list the issues with the most popular ones on top. And what’s the most popular issue? That’s right, as of January 23, 2009, it’s still marijuana reform.
Now, I’m not saying that President Obama needs to end the many silly years of drug prohibition as his first act of office or even at all. I think we can all agree (even those of us who support an end to prohibition) that he has much more important issues to deal with. And President Obama has made it clear that he does not support an end to prohibition himself, despite having experimented in his youth. He sees it as just that – something dumb he did when he didn’t know any better. Agree or disagree, that’s his opinion. Given that he doesn’t support it himself and it’s so entrenched in American policy that he’d make a ton of enemies if he tried to push any sort of reform in this area through, I don’t think we’re really justified in expecting this to go anywhere. The time for freedom over our own bodies is still to come. Let’s be happy for now with the breath of fresh air we’ve gotten.
However, if President Obama really wants to put his money where his mouth is on “transparency in government”, he should at least recognize the popularity of the issue on the platform his people set up. For anyone who put so much faith in President Obama’s willingness to listen to the people, it’s got to be kind of troubling to see the responses from his staff address the other “top issues” while dancing around that one most popular issue. As embarrassing as it may be, it’s sticking out like a sore thumb when officials are addressing, via video, other top issues which actually received fewer votes. Yeah, it’s a bit of bad PR to recognize that this is what the people used your new democracy tool to bring up, but you’ve got to take the good with the bad.
I still think this will be an age of enlightenment in leadership, thanks to President Obama, and wish him the best of luck. Seeing him win on November 4th of this year hits near the top of my list of favorite moments. But I will be nevertheless a bit disappointed if he does not continue this meme of openness and transparency that he has unleashed and at least recognizes the top issue in his Citizen’s Brief and explains his reasons for not pursuing it.