Bush Admin Policy: When the news is bad prevent the news from getting out!
This is couressy of David Sirota's Blog and can be found here.
President Bush has said that "in a society that is a free society, there will be transparency." That means that in America, we have a government where the public gets to see as much information as possible about its government.
But as the record shows, Bush is anything but pro-transparency. A careful look shows the Bush White House has systematically tried to stop publishing government information that it finds embarrassing or disagrees with - the opposite of "transparent." See the record for yourself:
- Knight-Ridder reports today that the Bush administration announced yesterday that it has "decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered."
- When unemployment was peaking in Bush's first term, the White House tried to stop publishing the Labor Department's regular report on mass layoffs.
- In 2003, when the nation's governors came to Washington to complain about inadequate federal funding for the states, the Bush administration decided to stop publishing the budget report that states use to see what money they are, or aren't, getting.
- In 2003, the National Council for Research on Women found that information about discrimination against women has gone missing from government Web sites, including 25 reports from the U.S. Department of Labor's Women's Bureau.
- In 2002, Democrats uncovered evidence that the Bush administration was removing health information from government websites. Specifically, the administration deleted data showing that abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer. That scientific data was seen by the White House as a direct affront to the pro-life movement.
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Bush said, “In a free society, we will find out the truth, and everybody will see the truth. In a society that is a free society, there will be transparency in the process. People will testify; there will be fair trials, if there are trials; the truth will be known. In societies run by tyrants, you never see the truth. You never find out the truth.” That quote can be found on the White House web site here.
There are many more cases of the Bush Administration preventing bad news from getting out as well as many many cases of releasing good news only to have to admit later that the good news reports were false when experts check their numbers. The Bush Admin usually releases the retractions on Friday afternoons or during the weekend knowing that the news would be too old to be in the Monday morning papers, and the Sunday papers are put together earlier than that so the news would never find its way to the American people. There are many cases of Bush Administration Officials avoiding trials for their crimes. Witness the outing of a CIA operative married to a US ambassador who revealed Bush's lies about Iraq buying Uranium from Africa. Bush said that a "free society" has transparency (the citizens know what the Government is doing and the Government doesn't hide facts from its people). So what kind of society do we have?
Joe
President Bush has said that "in a society that is a free society, there will be transparency." That means that in America, we have a government where the public gets to see as much information as possible about its government.
But as the record shows, Bush is anything but pro-transparency. A careful look shows the Bush White House has systematically tried to stop publishing government information that it finds embarrassing or disagrees with - the opposite of "transparent." See the record for yourself:
- Knight-Ridder reports today that the Bush administration announced yesterday that it has "decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered."
- When unemployment was peaking in Bush's first term, the White House tried to stop publishing the Labor Department's regular report on mass layoffs.
- In 2003, when the nation's governors came to Washington to complain about inadequate federal funding for the states, the Bush administration decided to stop publishing the budget report that states use to see what money they are, or aren't, getting.
- In 2003, the National Council for Research on Women found that information about discrimination against women has gone missing from government Web sites, including 25 reports from the U.S. Department of Labor's Women's Bureau.
- In 2002, Democrats uncovered evidence that the Bush administration was removing health information from government websites. Specifically, the administration deleted data showing that abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer. That scientific data was seen by the White House as a direct affront to the pro-life movement.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Bush said, “In a free society, we will find out the truth, and everybody will see the truth. In a society that is a free society, there will be transparency in the process. People will testify; there will be fair trials, if there are trials; the truth will be known. In societies run by tyrants, you never see the truth. You never find out the truth.” That quote can be found on the White House web site here.
There are many more cases of the Bush Administration preventing bad news from getting out as well as many many cases of releasing good news only to have to admit later that the good news reports were false when experts check their numbers. The Bush Admin usually releases the retractions on Friday afternoons or during the weekend knowing that the news would be too old to be in the Monday morning papers, and the Sunday papers are put together earlier than that so the news would never find its way to the American people. There are many cases of Bush Administration Officials avoiding trials for their crimes. Witness the outing of a CIA operative married to a US ambassador who revealed Bush's lies about Iraq buying Uranium from Africa. Bush said that a "free society" has transparency (the citizens know what the Government is doing and the Government doesn't hide facts from its people). So what kind of society do we have?
Joe
posted by Joe | 4/18/2005 03:33:00 PM
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