As Glenn has pointed out numerous times prior, notice that it is not the media forcing the hand of the White House to be more transparent on WH visits, but independent organizations such as the ACLU and CREW.

Oh . . . please forgive my impertinence. I am sure Chuck Todd and all the other reporters were sitting back waiting for each other to ask and pressure the White House for more information on the visits. My bad.

I followed the link, read the article, then some of the comments section . . . which must have been relinquished to some primates with a keyboard. Good god was that depressing -- the amount of ignorance and depravity was truly astounding.

No more Politico for me.

I think the simplest reason is Obama is no less a politician than Ben Nelson or Max Baucus or John McCain. I too fell for the Obama is different sham and voted with the greatest of hope but am now resigned to the next four years of the richest corporations and our military industrial complex writing the laws through bribes (i.e. campaign donations).

All of them are beholdend to the richest corporations and write legislation with a select few in mind while only giving a cursory consideration to the masses. That is why people like Joe Lieberman can say -- go screw the uninsured and let us wait until GE and the insurance companies are once again reaping windfall profits before we help those that can not help themselves.

that one of the lobbying groups for either the insurance company or big Pharma has just weighed in under the name of "libertyaintfree".

I respectfully disagree on the NY Times article being bad for the GOP. I thought the article was wishy washy at best -- specifically because it leaves out any and all detail who these groups are that are inciting these people to go out to the town halls.

Freedom Works is casually mentioned as a "conservative lobbying" group. What does this mean to the reader? Well the link takes you to Freedom Works website which is most unhelpful because it does not tell you that Dick Armey is heavily involved in Freedom Works and makes A LOT of money from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries to lobby Congress to stop any health care legislation that would cut into their billion dollar profits.

If the media did a better job exposing who all these people are behind these "lobbying" groups, the public would better understand this has nothing to do with ideology of "keep your hands off my health care" but has everything to do with profit. Profit for the health insurance companies, profit for the phamaceutical industries (which the Obama administration is now shilling for) and profit for Dick Armey and all the other neocons out there hiding behind patriotic titled groups which are sucking up hoardes of money to defeat health care.

Further, the NY Times is devoid of any policy information. What are the people protesting or defending? Why are they protesting or defending? What specifically about the policy other than nice little sound bites are they upset about? Heck -- some of them don't realize that Medicare is a government run program -- and that you have articles like the NY Times to thank.

Because as Joan says, it is he said, she said reporting and until the NY Times stops playing to the masses and gets back to its core constituents -- people thirsting for knowledge -- they will collapse under their own weight of unessential facts.

You are dead to me . . . Cyndi Lauper -- Love her (said in a high pitched, sing songy voice similar to John Stewart when he says "nailed it".)

Wow -- this guy sounds like a keeper! I hope I find someone like him soon as right now I wake up crabby, and I want to sing when I wake up too -- I really do -- and with birds chirping away on the sill and sun streaming in through the drapes. It would be just like a Hollywood movie. Ah, to be subservient to another man -- a true dream come true.

The press and the media freely let Graham, Lieberman, and Obama for that matter, extrapolate that the releasing of the abuse photos will put our troops in danger (or the most ridiculous elementary school argument of handing the enemy bullets) without any proof what so ever that this is really the case. And yet they cannot extrapolate that the true intensions of these politicians are to hide the systematic torture ordered at the highest reaches of government by suppressing these photos.

The press and media have their meme – release photos = harm to troops, and anyone can spout this nonsense without pushback or facts/contexts to support their argument. But the press cannot be bothered to report that at Guantanamo, Abu Graib, and Bagram, the actions of torture were pretty much the same in terms of procedures and actions of the torturing methods which these photos may prove – discounting the theory (as Obama said) that these were a few rogue persons. That Obama statement alone convinced me that he is no longer the beacon of hope (if he ever was) as the inside-the-beltway press and government personnel will protect each other at all costs from any illegal actions committed. What a travesty. Torture = good. Photo release = bad. My how the mighty have fallen.

"AIPAC is now even issuing veiled threats of a primary challenge to the superb freshman Rep. Donna Edwards for alleged insufficient devotion to Israel."

So is this not Israel indirectly interferring with US politics?