Conservative talk radio is having a hissy fit over the editorial in the Washington Post yesterday by our 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter.
Carter, in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act today, talks about how important transparency is to democracy and points out how events like.... "war, civil rights violations, spiraling energy costs, campaign finance and lobbyist scandals.... dictate the growing need and citizens' desire for access to public documents."
Ignoring the theme of the article, one particularly obnoxious talk show ranter said Carter should just stick to hammering (referring to Carter's highly useful and successful Habitat for Humanity program).
He called Carter's comments unpatriotic and linked the editorial to the New York Times piece about the Bush administration program of monitoring international banking operations.
For shame.
Carter never comes close to the subject of the NYT banking article. What Carter is doing is pointing out that as good as the FOIA act was when enacted, it can, and should, be improved upon.
After all, as E. J. Dionne, Jr. points out today in "A Dissident's Holiday," democracy should be an ever evolving process, which is "not a philosophy for the stand-patter nor a recipe for living in the past. And it emphatically rejects any definition of true patriotism that cedes to a current ruling group the right to declare what is or is not Americanism."
So today, on the Fourth of July, as we celebrate the founding of our great nation, also celebrate all of those who endeavored, fought and even died to make the ideals of our "by the people and for the people" democracy continually better.....
Those unafraid to challenge the ruling elite, we salute you!
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