A great catch from our old friend Greg Sargent over at the Plum Line…
Barack Obama’s campaign website still cites the fact that “the Bush administration has ignored public disclosure rules and has invoked a legal tool known as the ‘state secrets’ privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court.” The site declares: “Secrecy Dominates Government Actions.”
This despite the fact that the Obama administration has already invoked the state secrets privilege in three separate cases, including one claim so sweeping as to quickly produce an expert consensus that the Obama-ites are following directly in Bush’s footsteps, as we reported yesterday.
As Greg notes:
This underscores what a major turnabout this is and how difficult it will be for the Obama administration to justify this politically going forward. Yesterday White House spokesman Robert Gibbs visibly struggled as he defended the current use of the state secrets privilege while saying Obama still condemns Bush’s use of it.