{"id":23821,"date":"2014-07-14T17:00:20","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T01:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=23821"},"modified":"2014-07-14T17:00:20","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T01:00:20","slug":"fixing-legacies-by-killing-historians-or-the-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/14\/fixing-legacies-by-killing-historians-or-the-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Fixing Legacies by Killing Historians (or the Facts)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/140721_cartoon_022_a18350_p465-legacy-kill-historians.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-7289\" src=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/140721_cartoon_022_a18350_p465-legacy-kill-historians.jpg\" alt=\"140721_cartoon_022_a18350_p465 legacy kill historians\" width=\"450\" height=\"402\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>New White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was on CNN yesterday defending Obama administration coverups.\u00a0 He was asked about a letter from\u00a0the Society of Professional Journalists and other organizations which scolded the White House for &#8220;politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Earnest proclaimed that he is\u00a0&#8220;definitely committed&#8221;\u009d to helping &#8220;the president live up to his commitment to be the most transparent president in history.&#8221;\u00a0 And Earnest said that Obama <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2014\/07\/13\/politics\/josh-earnest-presidential-transparency\/\">had &#8220;absolutely&#8221; lived up <\/a>to that pledge thus far.<\/p>\n<p>No word yet on whether this means\u00a0Obama is on the verge of &#8220;coming clean&#8221; on his spying and killing.\u00a0 But maybe Josh will explain at tomorrow&#8217;s press briefing what happened to all those IRS emails. And it would be real treat for Americans to finally hear what the hell is motivating Obama&#8217;s policies in the Middle East and other battlegrounds.<\/p>\n<p>Four years ago, I wrote about how the George W. Administration left a<a href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2010\/04\/08\/subverting-freedom\/\"> legacy of far greater secrecy<\/a>\u00a0that subverts democracy and self-government: &#8220;The less people learn about government policies, the less control they will have over government action. By preventing people from knowing what government is doing, secrecy unleashes government.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, I tallied some of Obama&#8217;s<a href=\"http:\/\/p.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2014\/jun\/4\/bovard-caught-between-secrecy-and-censorship\/\"> secret government claptrap<\/a>\u00a0and harumphed: &#8220;No president is entitled to blindfold the American public.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The great Sipress cartoon from the new issue of the New Yorker captures kings&#8217; and presidents&#8217; attitude towards bothersome facts.\u00a0 Presidents don&#8217;t have the prerogative to kill the historians, but suppressing the facts can often achieve the same goal.<\/p>\n<p>On Twitter @jimbovard\u00a0 &amp; www.jimbovard.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; New White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was on CNN yesterday defending Obama administration coverups.\u00a0 He was asked about a letter from\u00a0the Society of Professional Journalists and other organizations which scolded the White House for &#8220;politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies.&#8221; Earnest proclaimed that he is\u00a0&#8220;definitely committed&#8221;\u009d to helping &#8220;the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-23821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23821"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23823,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23821\/revisions\/23823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23821"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}