Obama's "Transparency" runs True to Cousin Dick?

Where are Obama state Senate files?

They ‘could have been thrown out,’ says candidate calling for transparency!

November 10, 2007

BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist

JOHNSTON, Iowa — White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) –whose staff has been deflecting questions about the whereabouts of his state Senate papers — said Friday he was not certain whether they still exist.

Obama made the comment after I asked him, “Where is the stuff?”

The context for pressing Obama on his state papers is this: He is campaigning as a champion of government transparency and slamming chief rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for not pushing the Clinton Library in Arkansas to speed up the release of papers from her tenure as first lady.

At a news conference, I asked Obama, “Do your state Senate papers still exist? If they do, just where are they? And would you ever intend to make them public to be responsive to some requests?

“Nobody has requested specific documents,” Obama said.
‘I don’t have archivists’

However, the Chicago Tribune reported it has asked for documents from Obama’s Springfield years and never received a response.

The Chicago Sun-Times has also been asking about Obama’s papers. Records from Obama’s office — if he kept them — would potentially show appointments with lobbyists, policy memos, meetings, etc., items the state would not have.

Obama has no legal obligation to archive his state papers.

“I was in the state Senate for eight years,” Obama said. “I had one staff person, that was what was allocated. I don’t have archivists in the state Senate. I don’t have the Barack Obama state Senate library available to me, so we had a bunch of file cabinets. I do not have a whole bunch of records from those years. Now, if there are particular documents that you are interested in, then you should let us know.”

I said my question was not about specific records. “When the office was packed up, where is the stuff?”

“You know I’m not certain, Lynn,” Obama said. “As I said, I didn’t have the resources to ensure that all this stuff was archived in some way . . . it could have been thrown out.”

as a state legislator.

So Obama lost his files. So What! It's not the end of the world!

But, who cares. This is a total non-issue.

This whole "release the records" thing is trivial, but Obama did jump on it. He made his bed. I have no sympathy for him on this one

In addition, the claim that Clinton sent a letter asking them to not release the records was debunked yesterday, so it turns out that Obama's criticism was based on a lie that he naively swallowed without question

I think Obama deliberately misrepresents or mis-understands issues so he can get in a snark. Poor strategy over the long haul as it comes back to bite him. Its his "green" problem.

Still - I have no interest in his senate records.

I have to admit, I'm not interested is seeing those records get released either.

I can tell this this is very possible. I can see how it could get lost or thrown out.