I always thought it was absurd for Obama to promise that congressional negotiations would be covered on C-SPAN. I also thought it was absurd for anyone to believe it was a serious promise. I also thought it reflected poorly on Obama to emphasize transparency to the extent he did. If Obama were sincere, it was a scary indication of his naïveté, and if he wasn’t sincere, it was a disturbing indication of his cynicism. I could never decide whether he was serious or not.

But why is he continuing the Friday bad news dump? Yes, it’s what politicians do (though I could swear this was a practice that was, if not pioneered, than at least perfected by Bill Clinton. Question for Steve Hayward: Did Reagan do it all that much?).

But the thing is Obama insists he’s not a normal politician. In the primaries he said his chief opponent was “cynicism.” His whole schtick was that the American people are smart enough to be treated like adults. So why try to hide this sort of news? I guess we all know the answer to that. But why doesn’t this tactic bother the people who took his Obama-vs-Cynicism act seriously?