How it's worded, versus how it's received

"My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government." Barack Hussein Obama, the next former President quoted at breitart.com

I understand now.

He was talking about an unprecedented LOW level of openness.

Yes, we all assumed the best, so it really is our fault for interpreting it the wrong way.

This is the problem of modern politics, a speaker delivers a carefully worded statement, say from a teleprompter, and each member of the audience interprets the words through his or her own filtering mechanism. In the example above, most listeners probably assumed he meant that the openness would improve from our perspective, causing a better view of what happens within government. Only the most cynical would have predicted the change to an almost totally "behind closed doors" mode so publicly despised by the current practitioners.

The same people said we would have a minimum of 5 days to review legislation before it was signed (although that's far too late for any kind of change), but none of the major bills have had anywhere near that time. Most recently we only had 36 hours for the health care reform bill.

According to dictionary.com, reform really only means change, the direction of change has not yet been defined. Apparently to those in favor of owning "health care reform", reform means they get to own it, the quality of service is irrelevant.

Likewise, health insurance is not the same as health care, even when some choose to use the words interchangeably.

Matthew 7:15-20 tells us to pay attention, more words to live by.