Bush, Obama, White House Guest Logs and Hypocrisy

Maybe not!

We have this tidbit from MSNBC concerning who visits Obama at the White House:

The Obama administration says it will release names of most visitors to the White House, starting at the end of this year. Information on visitors in the first eight months of his administration will remain secret — though officials say they will consider narrow and specific requests.

In May 2006, the Bush White House signed a memorandum of understanding with the Secret Service, declaring that the visitor logs were White House records, not agency records, and therefore not subject to disclosure.

The article continues:

CREW said it was satisfied with the White House response. CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said in a prepared statement, “The Obama administration has proven its pledge to usher in a new era of government transparency was more than just a campaign promise. The Bush administration fought tooth and nail to keep secret the identities of those who visited the White House. In contrast, the Obama administration — by putting visitor records on the White House web site — will have the most open White House in history.”

And yet… Obama can still decide what gets released and what doesn’t.  Compare this to an article written when George W. Bush was president:

A newly disclosed effort to keep Vice President Dick Cheney’s visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public doesn’t learn who has been meeting with top officials in the Bush administration.

Over the past year, lawyers for President Bush and Cheney have directed the Secret Service to maintain the confidentiality of visitor entry and exit logs, declaring them to be presidential records, exempt from a law requiring their disclosure to whoever asks to see them.

Cabinet officers often don’t want to give up their meeting calendars to journalists. They have no choice under the Freedom of Information Act, which provides public access to some records kept by federal agencies.

But the FOIA disclosure law, which doesn’t apply to Congress, also doesn’t apply to presidential records.

The Bush administration has exploited that difference, triggering a battle in the courts.

During the Clinton administration, Republican-controlled congressional committees obtained Secret Service visitor logs while conducting investigations of the president and first lady.

Another Obama policy that looks a lot like Bush's.

How does the article written then conclude?

“The scary thing about this move by the vice president’s office is the power grab part of it,” said Tom Blanton, head of the National Security Archive, a private group which uses the FOIA law to pierce government secrecy.

“We’re looking at a huge problem if the White House can reach into any agency and say certain records have something to do with the White House and they are presidential from now on,” Blanton said. “This White House has been infinitely creative in finding new ways and new forms of government secrecy.”

We read, back then, over and over about Dick Cheney’s “secret” energy task force and how “Big” oil was conspiring to remake the economy because we had a Texan in the Oval Office.  How does this new openness of Obama’s differ from that of Bush’s?  Not really by much:

The new White House policy says it will consider requests for visitor information for the period from Jan. 20 to Sept. 15, but only if the requests are narrow and include specific names to be checked. In other words, if you don’t know who visited, or can’t guess who might have visited during this period, the White House won’t tell you.

And what is on Barack Obama’s website concerning this issue?

Make White House Communications Public: Obama will amend executive orders to ensure that communications about regulatory policymaking between persons outside government and all White House staff are disclosed to the public.

Release Presidential Records: Obama and Biden will nullify the Bush attempts to make the timely release of presidential records more difficult.

Uh… don’t think so!

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