Via Weekly Standard:

From Politico’s report on reporters’ frustration with White House secrecy:

A few days later, Gibbs said at one of his briefings, “This is the most transparent administration in the history of our country.”

Peals of laughter broke out in the briefing room.

I imagine that some reporters laughed because of the White House’s stingy and selective doling out of scoops–shockingly, the New York Times has a special relationship with Obama–and the fact that Obama “has severely cut back the informal exchanges with the press pool.” Politico reports that “Bill Clinton did 252 such Q&A sessions—an average of one every weekday. Bush did 147. Obama did 46, according to Towson University Professor Martha Kumar.”

But the administration’s stonewalling on national security matters is much worse.

Here’s a headline from April 27: “Administration only partially complies with Ft. Hood subpoenas.”

Perhaps the most egregious example of stonewalling is the secrecy surrounding Gitmo detainees. As Steve Hayes reported last month:

The secrecy started early. In early February 2009, The Weekly Standard requested a report on Guantánamo Bay recidivism from the Pentagon. We were initially told that we would have it within days. Then it would take weeks. Then months. The Pentagon finally posted a “fact sheet” on the report in April but only after its contents had been widely reported based on leaks.