Is the Obama administration living up to it's transparency promise?

Why do you believe "in this technological age" no subsequent president will be transparent? I tend to think that technology would make it harder to keep things secret so unless a President wants to blatantly lie in the face of damning evidence, it is in his/her best interest to assume that very few conversations/deals will remain private.

I'm not sensitive, just thought it humorous about how you summed up the typical conversation. I would say depending on the thread and the players the conversation would go an entirely opposite route (see: Republicans hate gas mileage)

I hope we can avoid the "But but but Bush/Reagan/X did it too!" arguments/deflections and focus on Obama's record and his actions in regards to transparency (or lack thereof).

That would be nonsensical, since what Obama promised was to be the most transparent in history.

What ^ this means is, he has only promised to be more transparent relative to other admins, so what others did is entirely relevant.

As the OP points out, that is a low bar to clear.

did he clear the low bar?

did he clear the low bar?

do you really need to ask 124nic8 that question to know his answer?

I'm a little surprised at some of the stone walls. After all, you can't hold one person responsible for every action of millions of employees. Of course some of those people will make mistakes and even break laws. Covering it up is not appropriate.

On the good side, we haven't seen anything remotely close to the scandals we suffered through under Bush/Cheney.

Manning's treatment also calls into question another one of Obama's political vows: He had pledged in 2008 to rigorously protect whistle-blowers, whose "acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled."

Instead, Obama has undertaken a war on whistle-blowers that makes George W. Bush look like a civil libertarian. The politician who promised and continues to boast unprecedented transparency arguably presides over its least transparent administration in history, which classified 92 million documents in 2011, and which, according to the Bloomberg News, has "prosecuted more government officials for alleged leaks under the World War I-era Espionage Act than all [of Obama's] predecessors combined, including law-and-order Republicans John Mitchell, Edwin Meese and John Ashcroft." Manning is among those so far targeted by this draconian legislation. This crackdown on whistle-blowers almost surely has a profound chill effect, discouraging people from coming forward with information about government wrongdoing.

On the good side, we haven't seen anything remotely close to the scandals we suffered through under Bush/Cheney.