Lame Duck Bush Team Killing Time By Blogging

You know blogging has gone mainstream when two members of Bush’s cabinet start doing it.

Yes, I now have something in common with Michael Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Defense. Welcome to the internets tubes, guys!

The men take very different approaches with their blogs.

Leavitt says he writes every blog entry himself, often late at night in hotel rooms when he is traveling. He is concerned that his entries are too long; on Aug. 20, he wrote 2,444 words about his trip to an orphanage in South Africa.

…Chertoff comes up with an idea for a blog entry, then someone in the department writes it, and Chertoff heavily edits it, said Jeff Ostermayer, a department spokesman who oversees the blog.

Mercifully, Chertoff’s picture is not shown on his blog, “Leadership Journal,” which also calls upon guest contributors like W. Ralph Basham, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Kip Hawley, Transportation Security Administration.

Leavitt, possibly a frustrated editor, features no guests but he does offer a confusing list of categories. I guess you have to spend some time on the site to understand the differences between “health” (capitalization Leavitt’s own), “Health Coverage,” “Health Diplomacy,” “Health IT,” and “Personalized Health Care.”

The blogs are not quite like, say, ours. Or most others for that matter.

The public can comment on Chertoff’s and Leavitt’s blogs, but both departments established ground rules that include a ban on personal attacks and vulgar language.

As all you Pensito Reviewers know, the three of us are on the receiving end of our share of personal attacks and vulgarity. And every once in awhile, we’re on the giving end too. But knowing how much time blogging takes the three of us, I have to agree with a comment on one of Chertoff’s posts.

Another comment said, “This is a serious question. How do you have time to blog? Don’t you have a 24-hour-a-day job with very important things to do?”

Not really.

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