Posted By BillHeise on October 25, 2009

Found this on the Web today. The Obama White House is switching to open-source code to power ther website. This is stunning news and comes completely out of the blue.

It’s a shame they can’t switch over to another form of the much-praised open source: information sharing. If I recall, that was a campaign promise and was one of the reasons I voted for Obama.This White House is making Bush 43 look good. He doesn’t have a healthcare bill, but we’re finding out this week that (after the debate is over and the White House lost) there will be a public option after all. How did that happen? No one knows.

I thought the purpose of transparency was to make everyone a part of Obama’s efforts to change America. But it appears that once Obama’s efforts at change diverge from the public, America doesn’t matter anymore. The President matters; he won the election, so the rest of us can pound sand.

There’s some truth to  this, of course. I realize that some campaign promises are meant to be broken. Bush 43 made the same promise of openness and broke it.

They tell me on CNN and Fox that perhaps I’m asking too much of our President. Making legislation is like making sausage: we don’t really want to know what’s in it.

That’s self-serving b***s***. I wanted to know what’s in it before we had the debate. We did not get that. I want know what I had before we vote on it. By all accounts, we are not going to get that, either. Apparently, Reed and Pelosi have shot down amendments that would allow us to even read the bill 72 hours in advance of a vote taking place. This makes it possible for them to advance a bill to the floor without enough time for even the congressman having to read it before they vote on it. What they are passing doesn’t seem to matter to the President as long as they pass something.

This is the symptom of politics as usual. And it was politics as usual and made me vote for Obama, who seemed to be offering change rather than more of the same-old-same-old.

Alas for me. You know what they say: “Fool me once, more fool me. Fool me twice, more fool you.” Bush 43 fooled me once. It’s much worse to be fooled a second time, because there’s no place to hide. You can’t blame the candiate and say “I didn’t know” anymore. You become the target of those who start to think you’re just a dumba**.

Of course I have the sneaking suspicion that Obama plans to pass the bill now apologize to me later. You know what they say: “Fool me once, more fool me. Fool me twice, more fool you.” Bush 43 fooled me once. It’s much worse to be fooled a second time, because there’s no place to hide. You can’t blame the candiate and say “I didn’t know” anymore. You become the target of those who start to think you’re just a dumba**. I hope that, come the election of 2012, that I will remain firm in my resolve not to vote for a candidate who so blatantly says one thing and so blatantly does another.

I, like Andrew Sullivan on a different issue, am very disappionted with Obama right now.

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