What does President Obama really believe?

Dear Friends,

I was struck this morning by two opinion pieces in The New York Times that are about different topics but both demonstrate that we really do not know what President Obama believes.

The first is an editorial entitled "Gay Marriage-Where is Mr. Obama?" (here).  President Obama has adopted the position that his views are evolving but in any case the question of same sex marriage should be left up to the states.  For those of us that clearly remember the civil rights movement of the 1960's, the states rights position is not very comforting.  Here is one paragraph from the editorial.

Mr. Obama’s legal formula suggests he is fine with the six states that now permit same-sex marriage, and fine with the more than three dozen other states that ban it. By refusing to say whether he supports it (as he did in 1996) or opposes it (as he did in 2008), he remained in a straddle that will soon strain public patience. For now, all Mr. Obama promised was a gauzy new “chapter” in the story if he is re-elected, and his views remain officially “evolving.”

The editorial concludes with some sage advice for President Obama.

Public opinion has swung toward acceptance of gay marriage since 2008; five more states and the District of Columbia have lifted marriage bans. Thousands of gay men and lesbians now possess marriage certificates and many former skeptics have come to realize that the moral foundation of the country has been strengthened. It is long past time for the president to catch up. He often criticizes discrimination with the memorable phrase, “that’s not who we are.” Favoring this discrimination should not be who he is.

The other opinion piece is entitled "Our Untransparent President" by Geoffrey Stone (here).  Mr. Stone discusses a number of areas where President Obama has continued the secretive policies of President George W. Bush even though Candidate Obama campaigned on a platform of transparency in government.  The opening paragraphs read:

AS a longtime supporter and colleague of Barack Obama at the University of Chicago, as well as an informal adviser to his 2008 campaign, I had high hopes that he would restore the balance between government secrecy and government transparency that had been lost under George W. Bush, and that he would follow through on his promise, as a candidate, to promote openness and public accountability in government policy making.
It has not quite worked out that way. While Mr. Obama has taken certain steps, notably early in his administration, to scale back some of the Bush-era excesses, in other respects he has shown a disappointing willingness to continue in his predecessor’s footsteps.

Mr. Stone goes on to discuss several areas of transparency in government.  He credits President Obama for repealing a Bush era policy on classifying documents that lacked balance between protecting legitimate secrets and the need for the public to know.  Unfortunately in the areas of whistle-blower protection, state secrets doctrine and a federal journalist source privilege, President Obama has adopted positions much like those of President Bush.  Mr. Stone points out that President Obama has changed his position on this type of issues since the time that he was Senator Obama.  There are two paragraphs in the op-ed that demonstrate the importance of these issues.

In doing so the Bush administration undermined the central premise of a self-governing society: it is the citizens who must evaluate the judgments, policies, and programs of their representatives. As James Madison observed, “A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.”...
The record of the Obama administration on this fundamental issue of American democracy has surely fallen short of expectations. This is a lesson in “trust us.” Those in power are always certain that they themselves will act reasonably, and they resist limits on their own discretion. The problem is, “trust us” is no way to run a self-governing society. 

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal