The Transparent Trap

The Washington Post calls out the White House over its refusal to elaborate on Representative Joe Sestak's claim he was offered a job by the administration in return for backing out of the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary. The editorial reads, in part:

Still, the White House position that everyone should just trust it and go away is unacceptable from any administration; it is especially hypocritical coming from this one. "I'm not going to get further into what the conversations were," Mr. Gibbs said Sunday. "People that have looked into them assure me that they weren't inappropriate in any way." This response would hardly have satisfied those who were upset during the previous administration about the firing of U.S. attorneys. If there was nothing improper, why not all that sunlight Mr. Obama promised?

This is what happens when you claim to be the most transparent administration in history. Reporters are going to pester you all day, testing that claim. Which is probably why the president has cut back on his official press conferences. As Byron York reports in the Washington Examiner:

The president's last full-scale session with the press was on July 22, 2009, which was 307 days ago.

When Obama last held a big news conference, there had not yet been terrorist attacks at Fort Hood, Detroit, and Times Square. Scott Brown was an unknown Massachusetts state senator. There was no national health care bill, much less national health care law....

A lot can happen in 307 days, which is far longer than George W. Bush or Bill Clinton ever went between news conferences.