Now, this would be almost humorous, but those of us who have a little age on us, like I do, can think back to the Clinton administration and can remember how many times when anybody ever criticized the Clinton administration you would hear the First Lady then and now Secretary of State say, “Well, it’s all a plot by those right-wing extremists, those right-wing extremist organizations.” President Bill Clinton would say, “Well, they don’t agree with my party and with what we’re saying here, but it’s really the people you’re hearing from who are right-wing extremists.” They label talk show hosts as right-wing extremists. All this fear was generated about right-wing extremists. Now we’re not even six months into the Obama administration, and the people who are supposed to be protecting our homeland are warning us against right-wing extremists.

Later, Carter compared the president to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

If you are first classifying people who disagree with you as terrorists, or dangerous, then the next step is dealing with those people. The next step may be, we’ll read headlines like this, “Venezuelan Government arrests Chavez opponent.” “Equatorial Guinea: Arrest and torture of political opponents.” “Zimbabwe arrests opposition leaders.” “Britain tells Pakistan Government don’t arrest political opponents.” “Obama administration issues warning over right-wing extremists.” What is the next headline going to say?

This stuff doesn’t read that well with the benefit of hindsight.

The release is expected later today at 4:30 p.m. EST. Taking at face value the transition team’s assertion that the U.S. attorney’s office requested the release be delayed so as not to interfere with the ongoing investigation, we can forgive the transition for waiting until today to unveil the report, which it says has been ready for a week.

However, the report will come out late in the afternoon before Christmas eve — which essentially amounts to a two-day holiday, when news consumption tends to drop dramatically. Despite all accounts suggesting there is nothing juicy in the report, the timing gives the appearance that there is something to hide.

It would have been nice to see the report first thing this morning, so it could be examined and digested today, before the holiday. Following eight years of the Bush administration, in which secrecy and late-Friday/holiday information dumps were the M.O., one very easy way for President-elect Barack Obama to signal the end of those bad old days would be to release information, good or bad, without regard to the ebb and flow of the news cycle.