Barack Obama is asking anyone up for a presidential appointment to fill out a 63-question, seven-page, questionnaire. If you want to work in the Obama White House, you better be prepared to divulge all your secrets. Actually, you better not have any secrets!
Here are some of the questions:
- Diaries: If you keep or have ever kept a diary that contains anything that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect if it were made public, please describe.
- Electronic communications: If you have ever sent an electronic communication including but not limited to an email, text message or instant message, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect f it were made public, please describe.
- Speeches: Please identify all speeches you have given. If available please provide the text or recordings of each speech or identify any recordings of speeches of which you are aware.
- Do you presently have or have you in the past had occasional (to be sure, a monthly housekeeper is covered) or regular domestic help? (e.g., a housekeeper, babysitter, nanny or gardener) If yes, please indicated the name and years of service for each individual and also provide a brief description of the services rendered.
- Please specifically describe any affiliation you, your spouse or any member of your immediate family have, or have had, with any financial, banking, mortgage or insurance institution that is currently the subject of federal government intervention as part of the ongoing economic crisis. This question includes, but is not limited to, the following: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, and Washington Mutual.
- Have you had any association with any person group or business venture that could be used — even unfairly — to impugn or attack your character and qualifications for government service?
To see some more questions, read more.
Talk about an intense vetting process. Just think of all the dirt Obama will have on those who answer these questions! Would you want a presidential appointment after reading some of these questions?
3.1 Phillip Lim
Orlando Orlandini
Balenciaga
Half of my answers will probably automatically disqualify me, but I'm still going to apply
1My only issue might be some drunken text messages or emails to my boyfriend. How do you word that in the questionnaire?
Pretty thorough stuff
2If only McCain had vetted Palin half as thoroughly as Obama is vetting his potential appointments who knows where we would be today....
3Either they vet you beforehand, or read the embarrassing answers to these questions in the Washington Post one morning.
4I believe this is only for his high-profile appointments like Cabinet secretary and maybe another layer or two underneath. I doubt if you're applying to be an administrative assistant that you would have to go through this hassle (or at least i'm hoping so!). The NYT article seemed to be clear that it was for high-profile people.
5Jude, did you go on change.gov to apply?
6And yes, I also think this is for high-profile people only. And, it's not in the least unusual for high-ranking government officials to be vetted in this manner. I know people who have entry-level jobs at certain government agencies who basically had to answer any and every question about their entire lives.
7Not yet, lil. I'm doing it over the weekend
8Good luck!
9This doesn't seem unusual to me. I would imagine most administrations do (or should do) something like this. I do hope that it doesn't prevent qualified people from getting appointed because they wrote in their diary (or published in a national best-seller) about past cocaine use.
10Thanks, lil
11oops i totally applied on tuesday but now i'm certain i wont be hired. damn.
12I don't think Obama is hiring anyone in my line of work
13the email thing alone would condemn me in a nanosecond... and IMs?? eeek.
14Lol, mine either Blue!
15Yep. And my years of stalking John Tesh are going to work against me too, me thinks. Sigh, I miss our long nights of me staring through his window.
16I could pass that pretty easily
17I think this is VERY smart of him!!!
18OK, this is embarrassing, but sometimes I think of all the things in my life that could be problematic if I were up for a high-profile job. I was in a sorority (elitist!), I dated a union organizer (commie!), I had some financial problems in my early 20s (irresponsible!), you get the idea. But I *never* took this scenario as far as whether my diaries or my message-board posts could be problematic.
I would be too scared to apply - there's no way I could remember every diary entry or e-mail and be sure that there's nothing embarrassing out there.
19Crap, I'm out.
20Ok so then why won't he give us his secrets. He won't release his transcripts, or his medical records. I don't care if he will be the president, we should know who the heck this guy is before he was elected but the media decided not to do that.
21What do you want to know Blue? Want to read his diary?
22I think this is a good idea. And IMs and diaries and such probably wouldnt disqualify you, depending on the severity. Most of the time embarassing histories are problems because they are surprises. If you know about a situation, you can prepare a response, etc.
23Hmm, I used to party A LOT in my college years, which leads to drunken phone calls, emails, IMs, blog posting...oi. Could potentially be embarrassing, but more to me than anyone else. I think in this climate where EVERYTHING is out there, they have to have some leniency. I mean no one is perfect. The current President has a DUI on his record! Of course there's everything I write on this site too and some of that stuff may disqualify me! Actually I'd be more concerned about what people I've known throughout my life would say to the press about me from my bad girl years than anything else.
24um, he did release his medical records - you are thinking of sarah palin i think.
25Oh I wanna read his diary!
26That's more thorough than the intel/security clearance questions!
27"that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect "
Am I the only one who finds this pretty funny coming from the source?
28Haus, you're not alone.
I think this questionnaire ought to be passed out to all presidential hopefuls and then made public! I think it would eliminate alot of the "Well he did this!" and "Oh YEAH well THEY did THAT! SO THERE!" kind of crap. LOL
29Ok, so I'm really going to fill this out
Where do I submit it?? PS I am a huge
Citizensugar lurker...so hello! I really enjoy everyone here.
30elle, go to www.change.gov and click the 'jobs' link.
31Why is it funny considering the source Haus?
32
i do not have the time or patience.
33I don't think anyone who regularly posts here would qualify.
I'm interested to see what will happen in politics as the generation of facebook and myspace and digital cameras everywhere grows up and starts running for election. I think we'll see a relaxing of standards, because there will be something on everyone.
34i dont think you have to fill out the entire questionnaire if you go to change.gov. i got the impression that this is if you are selected for an appointment. the application process is thorough, but pretty basic.
35That's the same impression I got, yy. I (obviously) did not apply at change.gov, but I talked to several people who did and none of them mentioned anything this in-depth.
36steph - its funny because of all the skeletons in his closet. if the american people were as discerning, i think the outcome would have been different.
37Well, technically they're not saying you can't have anything in your past. Just that they wanna know about it. I don't think anyone's so perfect that nothing questionable is in their past.
38I'm not saying its a bad thing to be doing, I just find it kinda funny coming from someone with so many skeletons in his closet. Esp. since he wasn't forthright with them and intially did the whole deny deny deny ploy and then admitted, apoligized, and we all moved on.
It seems somewhat disingenious to expect people you lead not to follow your example, sort of a do as I say, not as I do kind of thing.
Remember the whole Spitzer scandal? And then when Patterson took over he basically laid it all out and told everyone his scandals. I thought that was great!
39I don't want to dredge up too much, but what did he deny?
40He backtracked on Rev Wright, he backtracked on Rezko, Ayers, on that questionnaire he filled out with all this far lefty answers... he backtracked backtracked backtracked, then eventually either apoligized or denounced or blamed it on his staff.
41Had the outcome been different, wouldn't the other guy have skeletons fall out of his closet on the questionnaire? Speeches to ACORN and Fannie Mae, questionable letters to government agencies on behalf of friends and business associates?
42The Number Two person on the other side would very likely have email issues, a conflict of interest paper trail with oil interests and questionable hiring issues with the construction crews that worked on her house.
If only the American voters had been as inquisitive as the man we elected. I support him with hopes & prayers for the best, because he is what we have and my griping won't change that, but I'm still SO disappointed that voters didn't demand answers to questions like these.
43Ok, I see where this is going. We did for two years, and I'm done.
44I don't need to see his medical records or anyone else's, those are rightfully private. But I would feel a lot better about Barry O if I knew that he at least meets the minimum qualifications for his new job.
45If you don't know enough about Obama now, it has more to do with you not listening or not wanting to hear than it does with him not answering.
46
47Wow, any text I sent after a few pints to my ex-bf would sure be a source of embarrassment for me. I have a thing for swearing when I drink..
48Sorry, this is scary.
49On second thought, it's really smart.
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