The President Orders Transparency

[groovedaddy]

President Obama wasted no time in moving to roll back the Bush administration’s disgraceful strictures on open government.

In a welcome series of orders, Mr. Obama directed federal agencies to err on the side of transparency, not the Bush-era default of secrecy and delay, in releasing records to the public. He also undid the executive order signed by President George Bush that lets past presidents and vice presidents sit indefinitely on potentially embarrassing records that belong in the public domain.

And Mr. Obama issued some of the toughest limitations yet on the power of lobbyists to influence government from within. Under the new rules, anyone who leaves the Obama administration will be barred from lobbying the executive branch for the remainder of Mr. Obama’s time in office, rather than the yearlong ban Mr. Bush employed. In addition, no one may serve in the Obama administration if he or she lobbied an executive agency in the preceding two years.

The new president’s actions provided a burst of executive sunshine that Washington badly needs. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama already wants to make an exception for William Lynn, a former lobbyist for the defense contractor Raytheon, to become deputy secretary of defense. Mr. Lynn, a respected Pentagon official in the Clinton administration, has the right résumé — except that he was a lobbyist until last year. This clearly violates the mint-new standard, especially since the Pentagon job is so wide-ranging that recusal on specific issues is impossible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/opinion/23fri1.html?th&emc=th

[bemildred]

1. “a clean break from business as usual,”

LOL. I love it. He gets these little jabs in, with never a smile.

[JfromGA]

2. First time post to this great site...

If he's already goin around his own rules, then how is it a break from buissnes as usual? Is this article praising Obama for disregarding his own lobbying rules, or praising him for at least making a new rule to begin with?