Remember the Valerie Plame affair. Personally, I think it was a crime to reveal the identity of a CIA operative, and it was especially heinous given that members of the Bush administration (Cheney, Rove, Libby and perhaps others) did it for political payback because they were angry at her husband, Joe Wilson.

I had hoped, when Patrick Fitzgerald was investigating, that we would get to the bottom of who leaked what information, but just like so many other instances, those who kept their mouths shut got away with the crime. As you recall, Scooter Libby was the only one convicted--for obstructing justice and lying to investigators.

It's an old story now, but what is upsetting to me and many others is that the watch-dog group, CREW, who filed a freedom of information request and then a lawsuit to find out about Cheney's conversations with other White House officials about the affair, has been stymied. The Obama Justice Department is siding with Cheney, stating that an interview with the FBI about his conversations should be kept secret because it concerned confidential deliberations by White House officials.

Sorry, I don't buy that. Obama campaigned on transparency. What we seem to be getting is more of the same secretiveness that was so prevalent in the Bush administration. This was not some conversation involving national security. It was a conversation about covering up a crime--a crime against our own CIA. If Obama is going to argue on technicalities, we're in big trouble in terms of how much we an trust him. Too many secrets are kept already. This is especially bad for the young people who worked so hard for Obama because they thought he was going to be a real change agent for openness and trust in the executive branch.