Disclosure and Transparency by President-Elect Obama

One of six recommendations John Dickerson of Slate Magazine has for Barack Obama is to increase disclosure and transparency.

“Obama founded his campaign on removing the influence of special interests. "They have not funded my candidacy, and they will not run my White House," he has said repeatedly. To match this message immediately, Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, has a tidy little to-do list for the candidate who has promised unsurpassed ethical standards:

(1) Disclose donors who gave less than $200.
(2) Disclose the amounts and professions of bundlers who helped him raise gargantuan sums.
(3) Disclose donors to his Obama Transition Project.
(4) Disclose immediately online those who give to the inaugural committees.
(5) Promise not to raise funds anonymously for the presidential library until the end of his term.”

Dickerson’s right.

As part of this increased disclosure and transparency, I suggest that President-Elect Obama authorize the State of Hawaii’s Department of Health to make his original birth certificate public.

Two days and counting, by the way, since my email and phone call to Janice Okubo, spokesperson for the State of Hawaii Department of Health. Still no response to my thirteen questions concerning Dr. Chiyome Fukino’s October 31, 2008 Statement on Barack Obama’s Birth Certificate.