Seeing Through a Glass Darkly: Our Coming Muted Glimpse into the Obama White House

They hemmed and hawed and hedged, but it seems that mostly the Obama administration is coming through on one of its campaign promises:

President Barack Obama said Friday that his administration will start releasing the names of people who visit the White House, reversing a long-standing policy transcending both Democratic and Republican presidents.

The move, which could shed light on who influences White House decision-making, comes after a White House review of its disclosure policy and legal pressure from the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Until now, the Obama administration had sided with the Bush administration's stand of refusing to release records, in contrast with Obama's pledge of transparency.

But Obama said Friday after the review was completed: "We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history, not only by opening the doors of the White House to more Americans, but by shining a light on the business conducted inside."

"Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process," the president said.

BUT "No records will be released right away." Okay, that makes sense. Some people might have visited the White House on secret national security measures and the administration wants to make sure that those names don't get disclosed. BUT that's not entirely it. Records prior to Sept 15 will be handled differently:

The records of visitors from the January 20 start of Obama's presidency through September 15 will not be covered by the policy. Instead, the White House's counsel office will respond to individual requests for records during that time, but only if those requests are deemed to be reasonable, narrow and specific.

That's a pity because a lot has happened since January 20 until now. The bailouts, the stimulus package, the health care debate. It would be great to have the visitor logs online for that period to see what persons might have affected the administration's judgment and policies. Now one must endure the painstaking process of a FOIA request.

After September 15 the White House visitor's log will be posted online. BUT

Going forward, the policy covers visits starting Sept. 15, and each bunch of records will cover visits from the previous 90 to 120 days.

That means the first wave of records should be posted to the White House Web site around Dec. 31.

It's a pity that the turnaround time isn't, say, 30 days max because a lot of people can be seen and decisions made during a 90 to 120 day period. It might be too late to see who is influencing the administration and bring public pressure on the White House not to hike down an obvious policy path. But then we are talking about "tens of thousands of electronic records."

Still, this sounds significantly better:

The public is expected to see the full name of visitors, whom they met with, when they entered and when they left.

Obama said the policy will apply to virtually every visitor who comes to the White House for "an appointment, a tour, or to conduct business."

BUT there are some exceptions to the disclosure policy:

Some names will be kept private, though. Those include people who are attending meetings of particular sensitivity, such as possible Supreme Court nominees, and those who identity cannot be disclosed because of what the White House called national security imperatives.

The White House will not release records related to "purely personal guests" of the president's family and the vice president's family.

I get the national security visitors and the "purely personal guests" (I believe in the private lives of all citizens, even Presidents). But possible Supreme Court nominees? Why not them? I think that Republicans and conservatives have a right to whine in advance about a possible Supreme Court pick. Why shouldn't the public know who the President is considering and talking to about possibly serving on the highest court in the USA? I don't get that one.

Still, this policy is better—light years better—than what we saw under the Bush administration.