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White House watch, day 30: no response yet

Posted on April 29th, 2009 – 10:07 AM
By James Shiffer

On March 31, at the behest of Jay Lunde of Bloomington, I submitted a question to the White House about the cost of the president’s European trip. I wanted to test the administration’s new commitment to openness and responsiveness, expressed on the White House contact page. A month later, Whistleblower hasn’t received any response. I did get a sense of how many other correspondents are competing for the president’s attention, thanks to this New York Times story earlier this month.

Tens of thousands of letters, e-mail messages and faxes arrive at the White House every day. A few hundred are culled and end up each weekday afternoon on a round wooden table in the office of Mr. [Mike] Kelleher, the director of the White House Office of Correspondence.

Since everyone else is judging this administration by its first 100 days, I’ll give the White House another 70 before contemplating my next move.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 10:07 am and is filed under Public records. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “White House watch, day 30: no response yet”

  1. rodent79 Says:
    May 1st, 2009 at 2:10 pm

    You’re not testing the administration’s commitment to openness,
    you’re testing their ability to discern frivolous, innane, ridiculous,
    time-wasting wild goose chases! He’s the freakin’ President
    of the USA doing the job we elected him to do! Who cares how
    much it costs!? That trip was invaluable in repairing our relationships
    and reputation around the world! Why don’t you ask them if the
    President leaves the water run when he shaves!?
    If Jay Lunde is so worried about how his tax dollars are spent,
    then maybe he should stop wasting them by sending paid staffers
    chase down answers to ridiculous questions from morons like him.
    And you, Mr. James Eli Shiffer, should change the name of your blog
    to PWTMTOTH (People with too much time on their hands)!

  2. KJGreen Says:
    May 2nd, 2009 at 9:52 am

    Bet you didnt ask Bush how much money was spent on his numerous vacations
    According to you and the other Obama bashers, he should stay cloistered in the West Wing of the White House, eating turkey pot pies and not say or do anything at all.
    Get real.

  3. eh.phd Says:
    May 3rd, 2009 at 2:14 am

    I am in complete agreement with rodent79 and KJGreen…..findsomething worthwhile to do with your time. The issues you are pressing for answers to are not significant tests of the Obama administration’s committment to openness and honesty. They are completely trivial and beside thepoint. Ask questions about something that really matters, or, as suggested above, change the name of your self-serving blog to PWTMTOTH. Or, you could go volunteer for the Coleman camp’s appeal, another complete time waster!

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