John McCain and Barack Obama are allies on "transparency"
Here's an issue -- probably one of the few -- that Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama won't be trading broadsides over as the presidential race enters it next phase: opening government spending to more public scrutiny.
Just today, the two men, along with a pair of other senators, joined as co-sponsors of a bill with that goal in mind -- even as McCain was expected to focus rhetorical fire on Obama in an evening speech in New Orleans and Obama, in remarks later tonight from Minnesota, prepared to do the same to McCain.
Talk about multitasking!
The bill is a follow-up to legislation that Obama, McCain and Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) pushed into law in 2006 (with the latter lawmaker playing an especially key role, given that GOP still controlled Congress at the time).
The original measure, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, created a single website -- USASpending.gov -- where the public, free of charge, can track down details on "all entities and organizations" receiving federal money. The proposal was hailed by an array of government watchdog groups and sailed through Congress.
The new bill aims to make more data more easily accessible to the public.
-- Don Frederick
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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I hope McCain wins.
Why? Well, Obama's speeches aren't entirely his, so can we really trust him?
And Hilary - well, look at what happened when her husband was president...
Posted by: Kthxbaiii | June 03, 2008 at 11:56 PM
indeed. corruptness and insincerity is equally transparent in both.
Posted by: dave | June 27, 2008 at 08:14 AM