Obama Keeps A Campaign Promise

During the 2008 campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama promised his administration would be more open and transparent than the extremely secretive Bush administration. Yesterday, steps were taken to keep that promise.

Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and reform, had promised to make records of White House visitors available to the public beginning in December. However, they have beat that deadline by a month. The records for January 20 through July 31 have now been posted at www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/disclosures/visitor-records.

The records released so far stop at the end of July, because the records are only released once they are 90 days old. I don't know why a three-month delay is necessary, but that is still a quantum-leap better than the Bush administration. At least, the information is being released.

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

The first release contained some pretty famous names -- William Ayers, Michael Jordan, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright and R. Kelly. But before you get excited, these were not the famous people associated with those names. Eisen said, "The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House."

I applaud President Obama for keeping this important campaign promise.