What does the Obama Cabinet have to hide?

One issue that has barely made a ripple in the presidential contest yet stands near the top of the list of complaints among 2008 Barack Obama supporters is the lack of transparency in the White House.

The president had promised the most transparent administration in history and on his first full day in office  Obama ordered federal officials to “usher in a new era of open government” and “act promptly” to make information public.

But an analysis by the Bloomberg News organization finds that the actual outcome is worse than the opaque picture painted by Obama critics.

When Bloomberg requested the travel costs of top officials throughout the administration, 19 of 20 cabinet-level agencies disobeyed the law requiring the disclosure of public information: In all, just eight of the 57 federal agencies sent requests under the Freedom Of Information Act complied within the 20-day window required by the federal version of the Act.

About half of the 57 agencies eventually disclosed the out-of-town travel expenses generated by their top official, but most responded well past the legal deadline. Information on travel expenses for United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice will take a year to supply, the news organization was told.

Here’s a couple of comments included in Bloomberg’s story summarizing the situation:

“When it comes to implementation of Obama’s wonderful transparency policy goals, especially FOIA policy in particular, there has been far more ‘talk the talk’ rather than ‘walk the walk,’” said Daniel Metcalfe, director of the Department of Justice’s office monitoring the government’s compliance with FOIA requests from 1981 to 2007.

“It’s ironic that the demands in the presidential campaign for Mitt Romney’s tax returns are unrelenting, but when it comes time to release the schedules for senior appointees there’s the same denial of access,” said Paul Light, a New York University professor who studies the federal bureaucracy.

The Bloomberg story also mentions one of the most embarrassing moments in Obama’s supposed effort to increase government transparency. At one point, the president won an award for his commitment to open government. The award presentation was closed to the press.

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