You have a point even though you are wrong. When Presidential conversations with foreign leaders are “leaked” to the press, the ability for leaders to conduct diplomacy can be severely compromised to the determent of the world. Suppose Trump had private conversations with Kim of North Korea where he expressed a willingness to denuclearize if Trump could protect him from assassination from his own military. And that got leaked… how would the world be better off? What about if Iran was prepared to make concessions, but could not do so in public. How would leaking that help world peace. Leaks are neither good or bad for democracy, they can be either.
Where I agree with you is that transparency in general is good for democracy.
People absolutely depend on the press to report the facts and not shade them or try to influence the public’s opinion on matters. Americans need a “free” press… free of bias as well as free to report facts. Keeping the opinions where they belong on the opinion page.
Personally, I have no problem with Trump asking the Ukrainian President for whatever facts he can find on the two questions he asked. Zero. As you suggest with respect to “leaks”, transparency is good. If Biden has dirty laundry, Americans deserve to know what it is. If Biden has a habit of failing to recognize and steer clear of conflicts of interests, voters should know. Fortunately, the contents of Trump’s conversations with Ukraine’s President do not pose a threat to ours or theirs security, but what if it did?
The Biden video going around where Biden virtually beats his chest about how tough he was with the Ukrainian government and getting someone fired who was investigating his son, disqualified him as a Presidential candidate as far as I was concerned. His only hope would be if Trump’s research into the matter found out something different than what Biden said he did. All Trump could have achieved given the videos that were already out there is possibly “redeem” Biden by suggesting he was boasting to extent of hyperbole. Trump was actually doing Biden a favor.
In contrast, the harm done to the ability of Trump to work with foreign leaders is pretty devastating. Leaders like Xi Jinping cannot afford to take risks speaking honestly and frankly with Trump for fear of what they say being “leaked”. Instead both leaders are forced to act “tough” making real progress difficult. No behind the scenes honest deal making and then working out a way to communicate the agreement that leaves neither leader “without face”. The Chinese press has made it crystal clear Xi Jinping cannot afford to look like he caved in to America… How world leaders work things out if they fear premature leaking of their conversations would put them at risk.
So how do you reconcile the need for transparency with the need for secrecy. Simple, the goal of transparency is to insure we know who we are voting for and trust them enough to allow them to act in secret.
