"President Obama has embraced Bush Administration justifications for denying public access to White House visitors logs even as advisers say they are reviewing the policy of keeping secret the official record of comings and goings"

LINK

Didn't agree with this kind of nonsense under Bush, don't agree with it now...

Same. And, as a liberal, I've been frustrated by all the lefties who screamed to high heaven about this kind of thing under Bush, but pretend not to notice now, or even actively excuse it.

I remember a moment during the primary between Clinton and Obama, when one of the Obama supporters (I think it was Shirley) was trying to sell the guy to me. One of the most critical selling points, and the most effective from my own perspective, was just how centrally he was emphasizing transparency. After the dank, cloistered years of the Bush White House, having someone make transparency a major theme of his presidency would be great, if only to air the stink out. That's why this particular theme has been such a huge disappointment since Obama took power. During the campaign, I thought Obama was full of shit about a lot of things, but I really did think he was going to be a huge change when it came to government openness, since he'd spent so very long thumping his chest about the issue, and most presidential candidates give it little lip service. But he's been almost unchanged from Bush.

You've got the wrong person on that charge, Arkady. I spoke on the legislation he's been involved with, his co-author with Lugar, the issues that he was passionate about that were reflected in his legislative record, how he put together his campaign, where he had campaign offices and even some news from inside the campaign but I was never dumb enough to try to "sell" you. You were firmly entrenched behind Hillary and it would have been wasted effort. I did confront you a few times on what I considered wrong conclusions but never on the issue of transparency.

....and are led by a headline. Others seem to like to wait to see what more develops and if there might be any compelling reasons for doing one thing or the other.

It would appear, as with other things, Obama, as with Mr. Bush and any other President in history is going to be asked to explain. I believe as we have seen the differences between Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush have become evident and will continue to become evident in time.

There are similarities between all President, but many times people are not tracking and comparing every move of every President. In this case there is some merit to concern, but as far as I can tell, first word of this refusal to let the press (which so many complain about) publicize who's visiting the White House, was today and I haven't yet seem Obama respond to what you have repeated as a byline to the headline, regarding Obama following Bush's policies.

As I said, I believe some people would like to at least see how Mr. Obama responds to the "charge" before commenting.

I have no doubts that GWB and all Presidents before him faced conundrums and dilemmas that required several options for action and no matter what option was chosen, someone was harmed by it. It will be no different for Obama. I do believe, as mentioned earlier, that differences in responses have been and will be evident even if some actions may be similar or the same on the surface.

I'd like wait and see how this falls out, others are free to decide what they believe is going on immediately.

...unlike others who are apparently unable to ever take a firm position and instead need wordy treatises merely to waffle and equivocate.

Surely you haven't failed to note how many Bush policies formerly decried by leftists has Obama upheld, either through inaction, subterfuge or outright support?

Scratch that, you probably don't know (and may not even care) since as a master of the meaningless missive it really doesn't matter what's going on, since you're going to come down on both sides of it anyway.

I agree. Obama has disappointed me on several fronts. I am trying to give him some time though. The dummy before him had eight years to screw things up. I can at least give Obama more than 6 months.

....what you say is a reflection of you, no different than how you describe what I say is a reflection of me.

I will repeat, some people jump to conclusions, some do not. You can describe that how you like Boss.

Do you have any idea why Obama mght be doing what news paper headlines are calling 'following Bush' or are you simply speculating because maybe you have an inordinate fear someone might take you for weak because you don't jump right up front and follow the media (you seem to love to hate at times) and chime in with their byline mantra even before you really know why you've jumped in? Perhaps you feel you have a need to present some sort of image of yourself as being "decisive" even if you don't fully know all the details?

.....Obama is on probation with a lot of people, in part because he proposed to take on a huge number of tasks even before he was handed a failing economy, no matter whose fault anyone wants to blame the failing economy on. My personal feeling is there is already a difference between the two men (Bush and Obama) in their approach to things. Mr. Bush with Mr. Cheney's help seemed to strive to keep things from the public so end runs could be made around their scrutiny. My feeling is Mr. Obama appears to want to be more transparent than secretive, but may have run up against some conundrums or dilemmas which have caused some caution with regard to simply opening up anything and everything to the worldwide general public to use and abuse as they see fit and how those consequences may effect more than just the U.S. Government, but the nation as a whole. Time may be needed on how to best approach a release of information that may reveal something the public should know, but also something they maybe should not know regarding personal privacy issues that none of us would want the general public to have access to.

I'd like to see an explanation before drawing conclusions and many of Obama's explanations have made some sense along with the other things he is doing, but at the same time some are not fully explained when they perhaps should be. I'm not about to turn about and go back to the purveyors of the Neo-Con philosophy which while apparently losing support, still seems to retain control of the Republican Party. I already chose between Palin, McCain and the Bush family line and even with disappointments in Obama, I'm not going to be voting in a Rush Limbaugh led/Ticklebob supported "Republican" Party in the next elections and to be honest I am disturbed by some of the lack of sychronizations between the President and his Secretary of State as well as some questions about what appear to be attention to detail with regard to the Secretary of State's "diplomacy" and knowledge or at least research of the nations she is dealing with. Perhaps a minor detail, but I am often impressed when someone knows as much or more about someone else's customs and culture than those of that culture and custom. I always envisioned a Secretary of State would study up on the nations and culture of the people they were dealing with to fill that role. Maybe small potatoes, but I beleive people like to have confidence that those they are negogiating with care about details and who they are negotiating with and will not simply be negotiating from a myopic or egocentric point of view. Kinda like the idea that people negotiatig about health care include a patient's perspective, not just a business perspective or auto makers include a broad consumer's perspective, not just a business perspective.

In any case, Obama is likely to be far from perfect, as all humans are, but for now, he seems a better bet than anyone I'm seeing out there right now that could or would do a better job at an immensely difficult job. I agree he should have more than six months, not to escape scrutiny, but before people begin calling to trade him in for someone they think might do a better job, whomever that might be, including Mr. Obama's biggest critique, Rush Limbaugh and good luck to those that would put Rush Limbaugh in the office of President of the U.S. and good luck to the U.S. if he were ever to somehow make it to that office.