Here's the first of two items of interest from the Sunday edition of my local fishwrap, the Washington Post (I'll cover part 2 later):
Two freshmen members of Congress are applying some transparency to their daily routines by posting their activity schedules online.
Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) has pretty much all of his daily meetings accounted for, including those with colleagues, constituents, lobbyists, interest groups, and even reporters. For example:
Jan. 30, 2007It's not quite a blog, but it seems pretty useful, and if you're going to make a schedule public, you might as well put it up on the Web:
2:15 p.m.
Interview with Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post
"Before the newcomer's staff got his Web site up and running, they taped a paper copy of his daily schedule to his office door. "But we realized that doesn't do a lot of good for the people back in Montana," said Matt McKenna, his communications director."Also, Representative Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY-20) has her "Sunlight Report", which is a little less detailed, but still goes towards transparency (which makes sense, since both Gillibrand and Tester made issue of ethics in their campaigns).
Bloggers know that "transparency" is one of the catchphrases of good blogging (along with authenticity and responsiveness, among others), but this is apparently radical thinking on the Hill.
Will others follow? It's hard to say. Likewise, will Tester and Gillibrand keep it up? It's a little harder to get away from a public commitment like this, so I would say keep an eye out (it's a little different than personal blogging -- can't really do a "OMG, sorry for not posting in a while ;-)")
Thanks -- Joe
3 comments:
Pity Foley wasn't more "transparent."
Dianna
Can I go there and leave 5000 word comments, like I do to Ted? He's the wealthiest person I like to bother...and that's saying something for someone who's maybe 15 minutes from the Kennedy Compound.
The fairy tale is over.
Obama's pixie dust is wearing off.
A few in the corporate media are finally starting to reveal some details about this man's judgment.
I speak of Obama's long association with his spiritual advisor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama says he didn't know Wright was far, far left. While that is hard to believe, it says that Obama is not a very discerning judge of character. And it shows poor judgment for a presidential candidate to allow such an extremist to serve on his campaign.
Rev. Wright says AIDS was created by the US government to kill black people.
Come on!
"I didn't know about that man, Rev. Wright." Is that what Obama is telling us?
But there is more to come.
Obama's friend, William Ayers, is an unrepentent terrorist.
An Obama fund raiser, Rashid Khalidi, supports terrorists.
Wait till these tidbits come out. Maybe they won't release them till after Obama wins the nomination.
These associations with radicals show that Obama does not yet have the judgment nor the experience to be at the top of the ticket.
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