A White House conference call on the Open Government Directive, wrapped just moments ago, made clear that the Obama Administration's open government team is betting on the idea that those people who President Obama has appointed to office share a commitment to a new kind of open and participatory politics, and that leadership on the Secretary level will filter down throughout the agencies and departments they head up. There was far less focus on this morning's call on more formal and structured enforcement and accountability mechanisms.

On the call, led by special counsel to the President Norm Eisen and Beth Noveck, Administration officials were asked what the White House sees as the mechanisms for enforcing this new open government order, and in particular the ambitious timeline handed to agencies for the development of their own internal plans and procedures. The Directive itself comes in the form of a memorandum (M-10-06) from Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, to the heads of executive branch offices and agencies. And perhaps importantly, there was no representative from OMB itself on the call. But what if, asked a participant, "a recalcitrant agency misses a deadline? Who in the White House will asses that, and make sure the agency is on board with the directive?"

Noveck's response was that the government officials placed at the head of agencies are in their posts, at Obama's instruction, exactly because they are already believers in a new kind of government. "They were chosen because they share this world view," Noveck said of Cabinet Secretaries and other Senate-confirmed appointees. "There's already tremendous buy-in across the Administration," she said, "for bringing about this kind of change."

And if Cabinet secretaries and the thousands of government employees -- both political appointees and career civil servants -- working underneath them still do turn out to lag in meeting the directive's objectives, where in the Executive Office of the President, the Administration officials were asked, does the buck stop? "We are working entirely collaboratively," said Noveck, in reference to officials from OMB, OSTP, the White House proper, and elsewhere. "We really do everything together and as a team. It really is an all hands on deck strategy." She continued. "We have a wonderful leadership team to bring together people to share best practices."

With the White House directing the agencies and departments of the executive branch to come up with robust open government plans, and to do it in the next 120 days, will, Eisen and Noveck were asked, the White House do the same and detail a "White House Open Government Plan" for the internal operations of the sprawling Executive Office of the President? Eisen held that such a plan isn't necessary. "We haven't wanted for the development of a plan," he said. "We have a pretty well articulated transparency approach."

As the White House bets on a passion for open government to trickle down from Obama and his Cabinet secretaries throughout the executive branch, Eisen acknowledged that "it is a very, very large government." Still, he said, "we think there is a hunger within government to have information, whether it is convenient or inconvenient, put out for the American people to see."

(Photo credit: ktylerconk)