Note the progression of ideas.
Bush on the link between deciders and transparency:
"It almost doesn't matter if we have transparency if consumers, however, are not in a position to make decisions. In other words, if somebody is making the decision for you, transparency only matters to the decider."
Bush's recent admission of absolute decidership:
"I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense."
It follows from these two statements that if Bush is the decider, he is the only person for whom transparency should matter. And, conveniently, he is the person in charge of deciding what gets transparent and what gets classified. Convenient, huh?
But it seems this new, or more transparently (baldly) expressed, Bush doctrine is at odds with some other Bush Regime blather.
In Bush's Comprehensive Corporate Reform Agenda, the importance of "Moving Corporate Accounting out of the Shadows" (i.e., making corporations more accountable to investors), was explained in terms of the need of greater transparency: "Greater transparency will expose bad companies and protect the reputations of good ones. Firms must attract investment by demonstrating their strengths, not by hiding their weaknesses."
Recall how often Republicans compare the United States government to a business, and of course, in their view, always to a poorly run one. Well, if "greater transparency" will aid deciders about the merits of companies in which they vest their trust, wouldn't it make sense that the same would aid decider-citizens with respect to their government, and to their employees who run it?
Repeatedly, the Bush Regime has highlighted what they call "transparency" as a critical requirement for a well-functioning free and democratic society. Yet, in practice, Bush believes that only the decider, which has been defined now specifically as himself alone, has any need for transparency. After all, if the dictated-to wanted to know anything, they would not stand for having a dictator steal their liberty in the first place, would they?
Based on what we have seen, Bush has a point should he think that. For more than five years, the American people have not merely stood, they have reclined on the sofa watching Bush wipe his ass on their country, their constitution, and their lives. And they re-elected him in gratitude for his performance.
Do the people want transparency, accountability, and the truth?
It does not seem so.