In a move described as “crazy stupid” by one supporter, President Barack Obama decided to accept an award for government transparency—behind closed doors.

 

Obama was supposed to receive the honor from good-government advocates a couple weeks ago, but the crisis in Japan and preparations to bomb Libya got in the way. But in rescheduling the Oval Office ceremony, no one from the White House bothered to alert the media. One of the groups that presented the award was The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

 

“It’s almost a theater of the absurd to have an award on transparency that isn’t transparent,” Gary Bass, founder of OMB Watch, and one of five groups that met with the president, told The Washington Post. “The irony is that everything the president said was spot-on. I wish people had heard what he had to say.”

 

Obama earned the award, according to those honoring him, for requiring federal agencies to fulfill more Freedom of Information Act requests, publicly disclosing White House visitor logs, and posting more government information online for the public to review.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Obama Finally Accepts His Transparency Award... Behind Closed Doors (by Ed O’Keefe, Washington Post)

Obama Gets Openness Award in Private (by Erica Werner, Associated Press)