The Obama Administration is taking more flak today for a lack of transparency regarding White House visitors.
A public interest group is planning a lawsuit after the organization's Freedom of Information Act request for White House visits by health-care executives was rejected by the Secret Service, which cited executive privilege, the LA Times reports.
The Times noted that the rejection conflicts with Obama's pledge to craft a health-care bill in public on C-CSPAN. MyDD and the Plum Line blog argue that it also conflicts with Obama's promise to do "regulatory policymaking" in public. Certainly, it does run against the spirit of that promise, but crafting legislation is not technically "regulatory policymaking."
The more basic campaign pledge Obama is breaking here is this one: "The White House is the people’s house and the people have a right to know who visits." It's still on Obama's campaign website, too.
My recollection from the presidential primary race is the Obama folks kept upping the ante on transparency as they exploited perceptions that Hillary Clinton and her husband ahd a penchant for secrecy. That's why there are at least a couple versions of these transparency pledges floating around. - Politico Story
It is worth noting that just minutes before Obama went on Prime Time, They reluctantly released the information.
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