Well, he has a better record on openness than his predecessors and everyone else in both 2008 primaries with a couple exceptions (Kucinich and maybe Ron Paul).
I mean, he did get into office and immediately push a bunch of initiatives regarding openness. Maybe it didn't go as far as you or I would want but even slowing the descent is an improvement.
The guy has a long track record of saying he's going to do something, and not doing it. Take his proclamation, upon entering office, that the detention center at Guantanamo would be closed within a year. It's still open. Take his statements back around 2004-2006 that we needed to decriminalize marijuana. It took two years of the same issue rising to the top of polls for the guy to even address it, and he brushed it off. Take his promise to fight for better healthcare -- except during the voting, I heard more from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid than I did from Obama. Or the whole "let's talk diplomatically to Iran".
Many of those things can't be done unilaterally. The president can't force something threw that Congress isn't interested in (medical marijuana, the Gitmo closing).
I mean, he did get into office and immediately push a bunch of initiatives regarding openness. Maybe it didn't go as far as you or I would want but even slowing the descent is an improvement.