Transparency. The new meaning of "is" is...

Transparency as defined by Encarta Dictionary is: the quality or state of being transparent. Transparent is: clearly recognizable as what he, she, or it really is; completely open and frank. The thesaurus meanings are clear, obvious, apparent, evident, and understandable. Based on these, I must ask, has President Barack Obama lived up to his campaign promise?

On the campaign trail in 2008, Candidate Obama stated; To achieve health care reform, "I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies -- they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."

Stating that transparency and rule of law will be the touchstone of his administration, US President Barack Hussein Obama, on his first day in office, issued a series of executive orders to this effect.

For the life of me, I can’t find where C-SPAN has been showing the negotiations going on behind closed, and sometimes locked, doors in the capital concerning health care reform. In fact, there are reports that meetings are being held that don’t include both parties. When a Republican is invited, it is someone like Olympia Snowe who is a Democrat with a R, as in RINO, behind her name.

Candidate Obama promised that he would work with both sides of the aisle but it appears he was less than transparent on that also.