No Paper Trail For Obama?
November 14th, 2007 at 09:55pm Matt Margolis
There’s been a lot of talk about Hillary’s records from her days as First Lady, but I wonder how much attention is going to be given to this:
Barack Obama, who’s been scolding Hillary Rodham Clinton for not hastening the release of records from her time as first lady, says he can’t step up and produce his own records from his days in the Illinois state Senate. He says he hasn’t got any.
“I don’t have — I don’t maintain — a file of eight years of work in the state Senate because I didn’t have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records,” he said at a recent campaign stop in Iowa. He said he wasn’t sure where any cache of records might have gone, adding, “It could have been thrown out. I haven’t been in the state Senate now for quite some time.”
That’s just too hard to swallow. No records? Eight years in the state senate and we’re supposed to believe there’s nothing he can show?
Now, Obama has based his campaign on him being an outsider, and fixing government, and he’s even made an issue specifically about government transparency. Obama has even suggested that Americans would trust government more if government was made more transparent.
So, since Obama can’t be more transparent, since his records apparently no longer exist, I guess we cannot trust him.
It’s also worth noting that Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts, ran on a pledge of openness and transparency, and has since had what could very well be the most secretive governorship in Massachusetts history.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats
8 Comments
1. doggril | November 14th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
“Blogs for…um…who? Oh, yeah, um, victory…that’s it…victory.”
Keep telling yourself that…
hehehe
2. KCJ | November 14th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
WOW, doggril, thanks for your real enlightening contribution.
3. LewWaters | November 15th, 2007 at 12:52 am
Isn’t it amazing that Democrats choose to run on a record that is either inaccessible or nonexistent?
No worry, though. Just trust them………………… Right!!!!!
4. hermie | November 15th, 2007 at 8:01 am
Amazing how Dems can call for the retention of every email, memo, letter, etc for everyone else… but when it comes to their own records, they expect to get a pass.
As a public servant, Obama was expected to retain and file all records that dealt with his activities while in office.
5. Blogs For Victory »&hellip | November 15th, 2007 at 8:58 am
[…] can always trust the word of a lobbyist right? This is getting ridiculous. Between faux-transparency and changing his position on Iraq depending on the political climate, and now this interesting […]
6. Almiranta | November 15th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Lew said it best, and it bears repeating:
“Isn’t it amazing that Democrats choose to run on a record that is either inaccessible or nonexistent?”
7. roughridersfan | November 15th, 2007 at 11:57 am
“I don’t have — I don’t maintain — a file of eight years of work in the state Senate because I didn’t have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records,”
I guess cardboard boxes to hold papers are too expensive or too confusing for Obama. Guy like that should be able to afford storage for said boxes, too.
Shouldn’t the State Senate have that information anyway? Voting record, attendance record, speeches, etc.
8. semby | November 15th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Do you think this was a plant from the Clinton camp? Probably!
Duh!