New President. New Perspective. New WhiteHouse.Gov Site Baby.

Top Portion Old White House Site. Bottom New Version of Obama's White House Site.

To the keys to the nuclear arsenal, we now add one more technological weapon that is handed over to the incoming president at exactly noon every Inauguration Day: the root password to WhiteHouse.gov.

Top, a screenshot of WhiteHouse.gov in July 2007, below, the Obama administration’s version.
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Before Barack Obama even finished taking the oath of office, the White House site switched over to the Obama administration’s version. Macon Phillips, who identified himself as the director of new media for the White House, wrote a post describing the features of the new site.

He promised more “timely and in-depth content ” about the administration’s policies, including blogs and e-mail alerts.

Mr. Phillips also wrote the site would lead to a more transparent government:

The President’s executive orders and proclamations will be published for everyone to review, and that’s just the beginning of our efforts to provide a window for all Americans into the business of the government.

And perhaps most significantly, there was a commitment to soliciting views of the public. The site, he wrote, intends to make good on one of Mr. Obama’s campaign promises:

We will publish all non-emergency legislation to the Web site for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.

This isn’t actually a huge change. You have long been able to find the text of bills on the sites of the House and the Senate. And there is two centuries of history of citizens expressing their opinions to the president. Still, the visibility of legislation on the White House site, along with the promise of a five-day period for comments, may invite a great deal more discussion than in the past.

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Sexy Eh?