Obama makes Bush's record public
whitehouse.gov
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ExecutiveOrderPresidentialRecords/
whitehouse.gov
I may never get over the astonishment of seeing a president who thinks like I do.
edit: okay, those changes have some (mostly symbolic) substance to them. But there is not enough light in the world to illuminate all the caves in Mordor. I am not going to bet the house on the age of secrecy being over in Washington
edit edit: This is priceless. Rules without teeth, now that is change you can believe in!
"The Republican National Committee criticized that requirement and said the new administration was already violating it. Mr. Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of defense, William Lynn, has been a lobbyist for the defense contractor Raytheon, and his nominee for deputy secretary of health and human services, William V. Corr, lobbied for stricter tobacco regulations as an official with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, conceded the two nominees did not adhere to the new rules. But he said that Mr. Lynn had the support of Republicans and Democrats, and would receive a waiver under the policy, and that Mr.Corr did not need a waiver because he had agreed to recuse himself from tobacco issues.
“When you set very tough rules, you need to have a mechanism for the occasional exception,” this official said, adding, “We wanted to be really tough, but at the same time we didn’t want to hamstring the new administration or turn the town upside down.”"
Besides, Obama's style goes far beyond what politicians who are merely posing are capable of. It indicates a cast of mind and is not so easy to fake. Compare it to Clinton who was obviously faking, but who did it so well that people liked him.
I don't expect that Obama can or will fix everything. But I stand by what I said: he thinks like I do. On nearly every topic in his speech yesterday, he said what I hoped he would say. I never imagined such a thing could happen.
Edit: by the way, though your first proposed test is pretty vague, your second -- a detailed accounting of spending -- is one that I feel pretty confident about. I'd be very surprised if that didn't happen, and happen in a way that is clearly new. (Especially since Obama already championed it as a senator.)
Edit 2: people come up with all sorts of straw men. You'd have to be an idiot to think that Obama is going to usher in a kingdom of light, or do anything that goes against human nature. What we're talking about here is incremental improvement. That happens to matter. If you disagree, I give you the past 8 years.
Lucky you. Not all of us are so fortunate.
CTO in the cabinet, open government, search for all public archives, more online services and efficiency.
Once people taste clean water, will they drink dirty water again?
Day 2 and seems real so far.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_e-mail_controv...
But hey, maybe they accidentally used the official email system for something that might be of interest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Connell
http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/news_article.aspx?storyid=103...
Forgive my ignorance, but does anyone know the substance of Executive Order 13233?
"Sec. 6. Revocation. Executive Order 13233 of November 1, 2001, is revoked."
edit: Oh forgive my trigger happiness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13233
“When you set very tough rules, you need to have a mechanism for the occasional exception,”
...they're making exceptions. Specifically, "When the President does it, it isn't illegal.
You can't summarize a man by one (extremely highly scrutinized) day of action. In a few years we will be able to summarize the man. I for one hope it's a good summary.
More generally it represents a dramatic shift toward hacker values.
On the face of it, there is one major change under the new order: a former president can no longer unilaterally request withholding of their records (until possibly reversed by a court order). Now, the Archivist acting with the approval of the current President can ignore a former President's wishes.
Whether that's really a dramatic shift in practice, we'll see. (There may not be a single record actually released by this change, if Obama and his Archivist agree with former Presidents on any requests.) An article actually arguing this is a dramatic pro-hacker shift would be welcome. In the meantime, the raw Order text with a spun headline is a bad precedent.
I fully expect tenuous submissions of this type will fade with time. But the sooner they are replaced with analytical takes -- even if on the same subjects -- the better.
Editted with correction: removed "for the 12-year period" and reference to only Bush-43 and Clinton-42 as being affected. The prior policy extended to any former President.
Now, the Archivist acting with the approval of the current
President can ignore a former President's wishes.
Under this executive order, the Archivst acts under the instruction of the current President. That same section gives the former President 30 days notice before his records get released. If the former President wants to assert executive privilege (and the current President disagrees) the former President has to get a court to help him out. This will make it fairly expensive to assert executive privilege, but it also provides judicial oversight over claims of executive privilege by former Presidents.
Checks and balances, baby!
How delightfully appropriate for a former President who held the rule of law in such contempt.
<strong>Executive Order -- Presidential Records</strong>
Also, a sign of things to come for lobbyists:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ExecutiveOrder-Et...
The no-lobbyists order has been a long time coming. I'm thrilled.