As outlined in previous posts today by my colleague Andrew Moylan, the office of the distinguished senior Senator from Alaska (Ted Stevens) has admitted that it was he who put the secret hold on the Coburn-Obama bill.

Here’s the Stevens rationale that was offered by Aaron Saunders, spokesman for the Senator:

“Senator Stevens has always preferred to handle this at the staff level or member to member. He doesn’t like running to the blogosphere or the media.

Our reticence in getting out there is that Stevens doesn’t want to be in the media attacking Coburn. He has never addressed legislative concerns in the media. It is just not the way the senator has ever operated.”

Translation: Senator Stevens doesn’t believe that public policy issues such as the creation of a database to track federal grants and contractor payments should be debated in the public realm. Nice.

Senator Stevens’s apparent belief that government should be conducted just by elites inside the Beltway is, I suspect, at odds with the views of most Americans. And here are some other voices from the past on the topic:

“Secrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix.” - Harry S Truman

“The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have [to] bare the secrets of government and inform the people.” - Hugo Black

“Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government.” - Jeremy Bentham

Of course, no matter how much chastening Senator Stevens eventually gets over this matter, it's hard to imagine that he will renounce the practice of secret holds and his belief in - let’s coin a term here - WIOP* governance.

* Washington Insiders Only, Please