Obama administration not completely transparent

President Obama promised a transparent White House during the 2008 presidential campaign. He's getting mixed marks on this pledge by the Washington Times:

Transparency was a cornerstone of Mr. Obama's campaign. He impressed observers during his first year in office by issuing an open-government directive to executive agencies and publicizing logs of visitors to the White House, albeit as part of a legal settlement with a watchdog group. The administration also has started posting Mr. Obama's public schedule online and stepped up compliance with his promise to post bills online and wait five days before signing them.

At the same time, analysts say Mr. Obama has failed to deliver on the full letter, if not the spirit, of many of these initiatives, such as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s instructions that the executive branch approach freedom-of-information requests with a presumption toward disclosure. Critics praise the aim of the open-government directive, but argue that the administration must do a better job to ensure that the data made available to the public by participating agencies is truly meaningful.

"The good intentions have been there all along, but change is hard, and so the talk of change has started to ring fairly empty here at the midpoint," said Jim Harper, director of information-policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

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