Take this with fair warning: I WILL be supporting whomever the Democratic nominee is.
However, I'm looking for a few things from my nominees. I'm sure they've got the whole 'better than Bush whilst blindfolded and on crack' thing down. And they all make suitable noises about bringing troops home, securing our borders, health care, unions, etc. I also have nits to pick with all of the candidates, starting with 'can't guarantee troops out by 2013' and moving on through 'Iran is a danger to the United States' and other weaksauce and Republican talking points they feel obliged to add to their resume.
However, Obama has moved out in front of them on one of THE crucial issues of fixing the effects of the Bush Legacy - undoing the cloak of secrecy and lies that they've cast over the Presidency like a new Iron Curtain.
Obama has made the single boldest declaration of his willingness to destroy that shield, and done so without fanfare.
That is why it is not enough to change parties. It is time to change our politics. We don't need another President who puts politics and loyalty over candor. We don't need another President who thinks big but doesn't feel the need to tell the American people what they think. We don't need another President who shuts the door on the American people when they make policy. The American people are not the problem in this country - they are the answer. And it's time we had a President who acted like that.
I will always tell the American people the truth. I will always tell you where I stand. It's what I'm doing in this campaign. It's what I'll do as President. I'll lead a new era of openness. I'll give an annual "State of the World" address to the American people in which I lay out our national security policy. I'll draw on the legacy of one our greatest Presidents - Franklin Roosevelt - and give regular "fireside webcasts," and I'll have members of my national security team do the same.
I'll turn the page on a growing empire of classified information, and restore the balance we've lost between the necessarily secret and the necessity of openness in a democratic society by creating a new National Declassification Center. We'll protect sources and methods, but we won't use sources and methods as pretexts to hide the truth. Our history doesn't belong to Washington, it belongs to America.
I'll use the intelligence that I do receive to make good policy - I won't manipulate it to sell a bad policy. We don't need any more officials who tell the President what they want to hear. I will make the Director of National Intelligence an official with a fixed term, like the Chairman of the Federal Reserve - not someone who can be fired by the President. We need consistency and integrity at the top of our intelligence agencies. We don't need politics. My test won't be loyalty - it will be the truth.
I sense in this declaration the beginnings of our OWN Truth and Reconciliation Committee...a means to take FULL stock of the damage done to our Constitution and fix it. Not only that, a means to fully expose the crimes committed by the current Administration.
And I have yet to hear this from any other candidate, D or R. I'm hopeful that the Democrats will follow suit - I expect nothing from the Republicans. If they don't, though, this makes my choice even easier.
The Moynihan Commission on Secrecy - the base of Obama's policy statement.
DOCUMENT CLASSIFICATION—The changes recommended by the Commission in the present program for classification of documents and other material are of major importance. The most important change is that the Confidential classification be abolished. The Commission is convinced that retention of this classification serves no useful purpose which could not be covered by the Top Secret or Secret classification. Since the recommendation is not retroactive, it eliminates the immediate task of declassifying material now classified Confidential. The Commission also recommends abolition of the requirement for a personnel security check for access to documents or material classified Confidential. The danger inherent in such access is not significant and the present clearance requirements afford no real security-clearance check.
The report of the Commission stresses the dangers to national security that arise out of overclassification of information which retards scientific and technological progress, and thus tend to deprive the country of the lead time that results from the free exchange of ideas and information.
EDIT - I'd like to thank all of you for the recommends and the spot on the Pretty List. Hopefully all the candidate diaries that make it that far can be positive ones.