Seeing through the straight talk

Hey Charles,

If you've listened to Sarah Palin lately, you might've heard her say something like this:

"In Alaska, we have done things like put the state checkbook online so that everyone can see where their money goes in government. And in a McCain-Palin administration ... we're going to bring that kind of openness to Washington. Hasn't been done there before, but again, that's the reason we're going to D.C. We want to shake things up."

There's just one problem -- the federal government's checkbook actually is online, as part of The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which was pushed through the Senate by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn and, guess who, Sen. Barack Obama.

Here's a press release from Obama's Senate Web site about the bill to create what has been called "Google for Government."

Here's another twist, when the bill to create an online database of federal spending was placed on the Senate calendar back in August 2006, it was prevented from reaching the floor by, surprise, surprise, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who had placed an anonymous hold on the bill. Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that Stevens was 'the secret senator.'

In fairness, John McCain has worked with Obama to expand the information available on the Web to include data on competitive bidding, earmarks, government lease agreements, and more.

I suppose Sarah Palin couldn't possibly know all of this, what with a whole day of vetting and all!

Ryan