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 Robert Gibbs' Response to Sen. Gregg's Withdrawal as Commerce Secretary 2/12/09 — Thursday, February 12, 2009 —  Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) announced he was withdrawing his name for Secretary of Commerce today:"However, it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me. Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs released the following statement on Sen. Gregg's withdrawal as a nominee for Commerce Secretary: "Senator Gregg reached out to the President and offered his name for Secretary of Commerce. He was very clear throughout the interviewing process that despite past disagreements about policies, he would support, embrace, and move forward with the President’s agenda. Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama’s key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart."Not to dispute the official White House version of events, but The Atlantic had this out 50 minutes before Gibbs' statement was released: "Sen. Judd Gregg's decision to withdraw caught the White House by surprise. The press office found out about it at about the same time as the world did. If senior administration officials had advance notice, they did not widely disseminate it." Commerce Department | Nominees | Obama Administration | Robert Gibbs | White House Press Office Labels: Commerce Department, Nominees, Obama Administration, Robert Gibbs, White House Press Office
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 6:57:00 PM  So Transparent, You Can't See It - Some WH Press Briefing Transcripts Go Dark - 2/11/09 — Wednesday, February 11, 2009 —  In another demonstration of their acclaimed tech savviness, President Obama's White House Press Office today has removed, lost, deleted, who-knows-what recent press briefing transcripts since 2/4/09 with no comment as to their eventual return.Press briefing transcripts for February 4th, 5th and 6th 2009 are no longer listed at http://www.whitehouse.gov/pressbriefings/ and their old links will gift you an Official White House 404 message. Monday's Air Force One Press Gaggle is missing from the list but the link still currently works. Monday's first Presidential Press Conference, not hosted under the Press Briefings section, still remains available on the site. Besides the continuing delayed and slow posting time of press briefing transcripts, the team running the whitehouse.gov site has had a confusing and conflicting information architecture since the site's relaunch. URL references have flipped back and forth between different standards and styles for postings, so we just assume this is another glitch in their operation. UPDATE: The transcript for today's 2/11/09 briefing (using the more dominate URL style) has now appeared on whitehouse.gov but not the missing transcripts. UPDATE #2: The transcripts for the February 4, 5 and 6 briefings were finally reposted sometime on February 12th. Yay. However, the February 9th Air Force One Press Gaggle is still MIA on the whitehouse.gov Press Briefings page although still available at this link. What a mess. Obama Administration | Open Government | Press Briefing | White House Press Office Labels: Obama Administration, Open Government, Press Briefing, White House Press Office
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 7:07:00 PM White House Press Briefing Transcripts Available on whitehouse.gov — Thursday, January 29, 2009 — The Press Briefing Transcripts have been released after 06 Days, 20 Hours, 35 Minutes, 29 Seconds. The clock has stopped and the wait is over. For the last several years of the Bush administration whitehousepresscorps.org has provided selections from daily press briefings, with the intent of highlighting the relationship between the White House and its press corps. This was made possible by the Press Office's prompt posting of full transcripts in a public section of the White House website. The new administration has finally released press briefing transcripts to the public on the new whitehouse.gov site after 6 days. The archive can be found at the following URL: http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing_room/PressBriefings/ We applaud the Obama Administration for fulfilling, in this matter at least, their promise of openness and transparency by releasing the press briefing transcripts to the public. A special thanks to Master Transcription, a great company, for providing unofficial transcripts of the press briefings for the past week. Obama Administration | Open Government | Press Briefing | White House Press Corps | White House Press Office Labels: Obama Administration, Open Government, Press Briefing, White House Press Corps, White House Press Office
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 2:36:00 PM A Victim of Disorganized Thinking - A Press Briefing Transcript Lands at whitehouse.gov  Professor Marvel never guesses. He knows! Over 6 days since the debut press briefing by Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Office has finally released a full transcript of a press briefing for the first time. We welcome this move to match the transparency of previous administrations. A transcript of the the 1/28/09 Press Briefing appeared on the whitehouse.gov's blog channel in the late evening. The top of the blog article consists of the Obama Administration narrative highlights followed by a full transcription of the day's press briefing. We're uncertain if any of the previous or future briefings will be posted in full, so we'll keep the ticker going for a bit longer until we know if this turns into a lasting trend. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we're clicking our heels and wishing... Open Government | Press Briefing | Robert Gibbs | White House Press Office Labels: Open Government, Press Briefing, Robert Gibbs, White House Press Office
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 2:23:00 AM Transparency, Please! — Wednesday, January 28, 2009 —  Facebook users can now lend their voices in support to a return of the White House Press Office releasing daily briefing transcripts by joining the site's new Group @ Transparency, Please! Obama White House should publish the Press Briefings.Excellent. Tip o' the hat to Ken Shepherd. UPDATE: 1/29/09 - Just to be clear, Andrea Wojtanowicz Dvorak started the facebook group to raise awareness of the missing Press Briefing transcripts. Good job! Facebook | Obama Administration | Open Government | Press Briefing | White House Press Corps | White House Press Office Labels: Facebook, Obama Administration, Open Government, Press Briefing, White House Press Corps, White House Press Office
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 5:03:00 PM
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