That Was The Warm-Up, This Is The Real Thing

[filkertom]

So we all had some ideas about what we'd like to fix to try and make the world better. I even hyped one of 'em for a survey at change.org.

But change.gov is where you can actually tell President-Elect Obama what you think.

More to the point, the site has a feature called Open For Questions. It's currently in the second round of receiving and answering questions from the American people.

A number of folks, including markbernstein and randwolf, have let me know about this, and about a push to get one question in particular into the top five (i.e., the answered ones):

Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor (ideally Patrick Fitzgerald) to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?

This was posed by Ari Melber at The Nation. The inestimable digby has all the background. And you can go here to add your voice.

Comments

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Gee, what a great idea. Have a site to ask questions of the President so it can be spammed with never-ending accusations of being a islamo-socialist-atheist-nazi-fundie-commie by the endless number of morons that are dragging this country to doomsday!

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

As opposed to living in an ivory tower, with information filtered by some number of Swiftian flappers? Me, I think the experiment with access is a push in the right direction, and am looking forward to exposing the accusers you mention as the idiots they are. (Not in that forum, but as often elsewhere as possible.)

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Can't a "cabinet of rivals" be a happy enough medium?

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Only if you want all the input to be from insiders. Given how the Administrations from at least 1980 on have been insulated from the public, and considered themselves rulers rather than public servants, this is by far a step in the right direction. (It's not enough by itself, nor should all decisions be made democratically, but a President isolated from the general public moves quickly towards becoming a tyrant.)

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

warrantless wiretapping

I keep wanting to say "unwarranted". Teehee.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

I notice that a quarter of the questions are loaded ones about pot, despite that being answered in the previous week - and that most of the top-rated questions are word-for-word identical to the last set's.