In retrospect, it's kind of amazing how quickly President Obama has moved most of us to Missouri

To the point where I considered headlining this post "Obama administration shows it can actually do something."

From an author and law professor named Peter M. Shane:

The White House this morning released a long-awaited Open Government Directive that follows up on the President's promise - memorialized on his first full day of office - to usher in a new era of transparent, participatory governance.

The Directive, issued over the signature of OMB Director Peter Orszag, explains: "Transparency promotes accountability by providing the public with information about what the Government is doing. ... Collaboration improves the effectiveness of Government by encouraging partnerships and cooperation within the Federal Government, across levels of government, and between the Government and private institutions."

But don't worry, folks, we're still screwed.

If transparency is truly to promote accountability, then the public needs journalists to help discover, gather, compare, contextualize, and share the new information becoming available.

Uh-oh.

In recent memory, "journalists" in this country tend to roll over for Republican presidents. Then decide they've been too gullible and fancy themselves "truthtellers" just in time to be an obstacle to the progress of any Democrat. Then they start all over again when the GOP is back in.

That is, when they're not covering the whole thing as if it were a horserace where who wins doesn't actually matter.

This does not bode well (and President Obama knows it).

These journalists may be citizen journalists.

They may be our only hope. I mean, seriously, can you name me five professional, trustworthy journalists in this country not counting Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart?

It is skillful engagement with information that turns greater transparency into deeper democracy.

"Skillful"...yeah, we're still screwed.