Considering that the author is attacking politicians for their lack of candor, I think the author himself is a bit disingenuous in how he treats the subject. The author's thesis is certain a popular one, I would wager that if asked about how the government communicates with its populace, most people would express a desire for more transparency and candor. Unfortunately such a simple desire, if taken to its logical extreme, is simply incompatible with the complexities of the real world. The unfortunate reality is that a national government simply cannot allow itself to be completely open and honest with the public on all matters due a variety of practical constraints.

Since the article starts with the issue of refugees, I will try to use this thorny problem to try to explain my point. The author argues that recognizing the rise in the number (and scale) of attempts of migrants to illegally cross into Europe by sea, EU politicians should have been more pro-active in informing the public about this threat to human lives, and to have proactively revamped rescue operations to reduce the inevitable death toll. All this at a first glance sounds noble and perhaps even logical, but really it's rather silly. Why not go one step further? A key complication that is so often ignored is that a large number of the migrants do in fact have a legal claim to asylum. Some of the refugees come from quasi-totalitarian states like Eritrea, many more from scorched war-zones from Africa to the Middle East.

If the goal of the European leaders was to simply minimize the death toll, then a more logical solution than letting the migrants embark on a life-threatening trek across the Mediterranean would have been to create pre-screening stations at their points of departure along the coast, and to organize transportation for those who qualified. Problem solved, right? But here's the rub, the unfortunate reality is that Europe does not wish to take on such a large number of migrants for a number of reasons. Many countries would argue that taking on all qualifying refugees would overburden their social services, others worry about the difficulty of assimilating such a large number of immigrants, others worry about possible security risks in light of the recent spike in Islamic terrorism.

Some of these concerns are valid, some less so, but the point is that there is an unspoken consensus transcending both the European public and their leaders that the pace of immigration, including that of legitimate refugees, should be checked. However, could a government allow itself to explicitly express such a general unwillingness to accept refugees? A categoric statement in this regard would open the country in question to widespread opprobrium both within Europe and abroad and may even clash with international law on this subject. Instead European leaders have opted for this cat-and-mouse approach, which in practice acts as an effective break on the rate of immigration, without really opening up the policy to the full brunt of criticism it would face if it were made more explicit. Most European citizens, if they were honest with themselves would probably have to admit that they have tacitly accepted this pragmatic solution.

In other words, it's easy to blame the politicians, but in reality they have made hard choices in the face of intractable practical realities that oftentimes are implicitly endorsed by the public. Even if citizens may have qualms when looking at the true implications, of some pieces of legislation, by and large a majority is willing to accept the full package. As Bismarck once said:

Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made. Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/o/ottovonbis161318.html#5QDstTWVvcrXHWrg.99