Quote:
Originally Posted by Aladdin Sane
If only The One hadn't made such a big deal out of the Bush ("Fascist") practice in order to get elected, no one would notice.
Well, at least it's bipartisan.
The still sort-of new Barack Obama Democratic administration has again adopted yet another policy straight out of the administration of his much-criticized Republican predecessor George W. Bush.
Obama administration officials have rejected a watchdog group's request for a list of healthcare industry executives who've been meeting secretly in the White House with Obama staffers to discuss pending healthcare changes being drafted there and in Congress.
According to the Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, which is suspicious of the influence of health industry lobbyists and company officers, it received a letter from the Secret Service citing an Obama Justice Dept. directive and denying access to visitor logs under the "presidential communications privilege."
Sound familiar?
Remember the holy hulabaloo in the early Bush years when Vice President Dick Cheney met in the White House compound with energy industry officials and refused to release a list of those executives and the frequency of their visits? That controversy was propelled by critical Democrats and was before Obama's brief Senate tenure.....
And we wondered aloud how such secret get-togethers differed from Cheney's secret meetings. No answer.
Obama White House breaks another promise to reject Bush secrecy | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times |
The White House released the list of health care execs attending meetings at the WH:
Quote:
The Obama administration released Wednesday night a list of 15 health-care lobbyists and senior executives who have visited the White House to discuss health-care reform.
Guests have included Billy Tauzin of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; Karen Ignagni of America's Health Insurance Plans; Richard Umbdenstock of the American Hospital Association; and J. James Rohack of the American Medical Association, according to a letter from White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig. Senior executives at companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, UnitedHealth Group and Merck also visited at least once.
The list was released in response to a lawsuit filed earlier in the day by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, which had been denied access to the names by the U.S. Secret Service. Many of the meetings, it turned out, were well-known gatherings that had already been publicized....
...CREW said in a statement that Craig's letter "in no way" fulfills the group's request, which was for the visitor logs themselves.
"Releasing some records because it is politically expedient to do so is not transparency," the group said.
The White House's decision to release the information marks another departure in policy from the Bush administration, which fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to withhold the names of participants in an energy task force, run by then-vice president Richard B. Cheney, that was dominated by representatives of the oil and gas industries.
The Obama White House has made little secret of its intent to meet frequently with industry representatives in hopes of gaining their cooperation on reform efforts. One March 5 health-care summit, for example, was hosted by President Obama and featured more than 150 people, including physicians, business leaders, union representatives and consumer advocates. Four of the industry group leaders on the new White House list attended that summit.
White House Discloses Meetings With Health Care Executives | 44 | washingtonpost.com
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Another policy straight out of the administration of his much-criticized Republican predecessor George W. Bush......I think not.
And we wondered aloud how such secret get-togethers differed from Cheney's secret meetings....There's your answer.