ONYD – Who’s Visiting The White House?

Do you think it’s important that there be transparency with regard to who’s having influence on the President and Vice President? I’m not advocating releasing transcripts of White House conversations here, though it sure would be nice to know what the Vice President discussed with energy company executives back in 2000, prior to a run of record-breaking profits for oil companies.

No, what I’m talking about is knowing who’s going in and out the doors at the White House. The Bush Administration is claiming that the list of visitor’s logs to the White House and the Vice President’s residence, are not public documents, even though they’re Secret Service logs, not White House documents. Remember, this is the same administration that said that the Vice President’s office is not part of the Executive Branch of government.

They’re saying that releasing the names of visitors to the President and the Vice President would somehow discourage people from meeting with the President or VP, and giving them candid advice. I certainly don’t understand this, since just knowing that someone is meeting with the President doesn’t give any information with regard to what was said.

Are Bush and Cheney meeting with people whose mere presence in the White House is so scandalous that they can’t be disclosed? I doubt it. But in an Administration that claims that even the most routine data is a matter of grave national security, this is one more instance of their secrecy casting the illusion of something fishy going on.

And of course, the Republicans had no problem accessing the same information when they were going after then-President Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky affair.

The 300 Project: 12/87