Nothing lost in translation on Biden dig

[evanovitch]

WASHINGTON - Vice President Joe Biden promised a “fully transparent” task force to help the middle class. So why is the audience laughing?

<span style="font-weight: bold">Biden is leading a task force to look at how to improve economic realities for working families</span>. And it will have its own Web site astrongmiddleclass.gov as the Obama administration presses on with its goal to use the Internet to communicate with the public.

“This task force, I might add — which, coming out of the vice president’s office, will be a bit unique —<span style="font-weight: bold"> will be fully transparent, totally transparent,” </span>Biden said.

<span style="font-weight: bold">And the audience laughed</span>.

“We are going to consult openly — openly and publicly with outside groups who can help us develop the most far-reaching and imaginative solutions to help us solve these problems and create the outcome we’re looking for,” Biden said.

“And we’ll put all the material from our meetings and any report we produc`e up on the Web site. None of this will happen behind closed doors. We want the American people engaged. We want them engaged from the outset,” he said.

Well…

All this talk about openness and transparency and no closed doors by the new vice president sounds a lot like a not so veiled dig at his predecessor, Dick Cheney, whom critics considered overly secretive.

<span style="font-weight: bold">The former vice president went to the Supreme Court to block adversaries from getting documents from an energy task force he headed.</span>

And remember the undisclosed location?

[evanovitch]

Obama mobilizes grassroots supporters..


President Barack Obama is mobilizing his grassroots supporters to help build support for his $825 billion economic stimulus package.

<span style="font-weight: bold">In an e-mail sent out Friday, former Obama campaign worker Mitch Stewart urged the campaign’s most ardent activists to host house parties on Feb. 6 to build support for the plan,</span> which must still clear the Senate after passing the House on a sharply partisan vote on Wednesday.

“The economic crisis can seem overwhelming and complex, but you can help the people you know connect the recovery plan to their lives and learn more about why it’s important,” Stewart said.

It will be a first test for the new organization, Organizing for America, that was built to capture the momentum from Obama’s record-setting presidential campaign to help him enact his policies now that he’s president.

The new group, housed in the offices of the Democratic National Committee, retains Obama’s database of 13 million campaign supporters and has enlisted Stewart and several other campaign veterans to oversee it.

Stewart’s message suggests that the group will take a soft touch, at least initially, by seeking to build support at the grassroots level rather than getting members to lobby lawmakers directly.

Stewart sent the message to those who have already hosted Obama house parties. The organization said 4,200 members hosted house parties in December – how many will heed the call next week?