Credit: Robert Scoble (Title: "Jesse Lee blogging in Wordpress")

What, you don't subscribe to Delta Sky Magazine? You're missing out, then, on this interview with White House director of online programs Jesse Lee. As a Hill and DCCC vet, Lee has depth of experience in government and politics that is probably matched by only a few blog/new media folks. Here's how Lee describes his gig, and the role of the new media team in the White House:

My title is “online programs director,” but given that this is the first New Media department in the White House, we all have to kind of make up our roles on the fly. In practice, I’m the managing editor of whitehouse.gov and the main writer for the blog. I conceptualize and execute a lot of the online engagement from online town halls with the president to the more regular online video chats with senior policy folks. And I also serve as a sort of liaison to bloggers, which means I have one foot in the broader communications and press shops, and am also the main new media contact for other offices in the White House like the Office of Health Reform and the Office of Public Engagement. It’s a lot of hats, but it actually reflects well on how well integrated new media is here, which is a challenge most organizations haven’t conquered yet (we’re not just “the Internet people” as is often the case).

There was a concern when the White House new media team got its start that it would, in org-chart or in practice, be circumscribed by its place as part of the White House's communications wing. But, as Lee describes and as observation tells us, the new media shop seems to have relatively comfortably settled into a role of part outreach, part activism, part organizing, and part a dozen other things. That's probably aided by the fact that they used lingo like "Facetweet," as Lee says. That probably scares the rest of the White House staff into giving them some space.

It's a fun and enlightening interview, in general. And Lee touches on the pressing question of what a guy like him wears to work in the White House:

As a blogger, I’m actually required to wear pajamas to work, and my office was remodeled as a replica of my mom’s basement (which is sad, because it is unfinished and floods in the rain).

Hee. But take this as insight into what passes for wild and crazy behavior in DC:

Just kidding—suit and tie every day, though I have been known to wear brown shoes from time to time.

Brown shoes! Call down the Secret Service. He works in the joint.

Was yesterday's all-day meeting at Blair House on health care reform a success? Well, by one measure, it was a huge success for the White House new media operation, which provided a live web stream to users all over the web. This tweet from new media director Macon Phillips sums it up:

One of the most interesting elements in this Thursday's "summit" at the White House on health care reform is the Administration's commitment to broadcast the proceedings live. But it's not just inviting C-SPAN into the room (finally), or posting the video on the "/live" section of WhiteHouse.gov. The White House new media operation is giving the embed code to anyone who wants to host the video on their own website. I'm pasting the code in below so you can see what you get, for now...

In advance of Thursday's bipartisan meeting, the Obama administration has posted a copy of its vision of a health care reform package on WhiteHouse.gov. Check it out here. The White House has also added links on its site to the health care proposals being offered by House and Senate Democrats and Republicans -- though for at least one of those caucuses, the link simply points to its home page.

Thursday's health care fest at Blair House will be streamed live on the White House website.

I'll have a recap later of today's modernizing government summit, but this caught my eye. When nothing's happen in the White House press room, at least, the monitor basically becomes a giant RSS reader for the White House blog.

Over on Technology Liberation Front, Cato's Jim Harper is thrilled with a small tweak to the homepage of Whitehouse.gov that added a "Comment on Pending Legislation" option under the running list of Featured Legislation.

"Kudos to the White House," blogs Harper, "for moving toward full implementation of President Obama’s Sunlight Before Signing promise!" That's a reference to Obama's pledge, made both while a candidate and in the early days of his presidency, to post legislation sent to him by Congress for five full days before he signs it.

That said, getting to the point where you can submit a comment on pending legislation to the White House takes some doing. Clicking on the "Comment" option on the homepage directs you to a list of pending legislation. Currently four bills are on the list. Click on a bill title, and you get two options: read the bill, or comment on the legislation. Selecting the latter pulls up the White House's standard legislation web comment form, prepopulated with the bill's title.

Here's an intriguing job opening. Rock Creek Strategic Marketing is the web firm that the Obama White House has been working with to, when the need arises, supplement its new media team that consists of eight or so political appointees. The firm, according to Dow Jones, is currently working with the White House to build out certain areas of the Obama Administration's core capabilities, like generating a Spanish-language version of WhiteHouse.gov. But more than that, what catches the eye is that Rock Creek also happens right now to be in the market for a programmer who has both (a) considerable Drupal chops and (b) a clean enough nose to qualify for U.S. government security clearance:

Rock Creek Strategic Marketing...seeks a website developer to perform ongoing development and integration tasks for an on-site position in the DC metro area. In this position, you will work directly with the client to gather information, requirements, and enhance the website. Work will primarily focus on the Drupal CMS ranging from module development to front-end coding and posting of content. The position will also involve interaction with the open source community.

Or, in other words, there's a very good chance that what we're looking at here is an open call for someone to serve in the capacity of first ever Drupaler of the United States.

Even smaller than the fraternity of people who have served as President of the United States is the fraternity of those who have served as the Internet Director to the President of the United States. David Almacy is a member of the latter club, having served under President George W. Bush's tenure, and as we chew over the White House's recent embrace of the Drupal open-source content management system, Almacy has an invaluable post up walking us back through the history of the online White House, back to the days when there was no content management system to speak of.

(Yes, those days did exist. Perhaps today is a good day for those more, ehem, experienced among us to take some time to share with our younger colleagues what it was like back when publishing something online generally required hand coding HTML, and there was one, maybe two people in an organization that could thus do much of anything on the web. Uphill, both ways.)

Back in those days before Drupal, Almacy tells us...

UPDATE: On the off chance you don't read "Fast Lane," the blog of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, here's a pointer to a post in which he gives a high five to the White House for getting his back against Edmunds on Cash for Clunkers. Pile on!

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The White House blog has been going after Edmunds. Who's that?, you're asking yourself. Noted conservative thinker John Edmunds?* No, no, it's Edmunds.com, the automotive website where you can look up the value of a used car or get some advice on what you should drive next. The site, whose CEO Jeremy Anwyl has been a critic of the Cash-for-Clunkers program since this summer, just released an analysis that found that many of the cars traded in during the program would have been traded in even if the program had not existed. The White House was not pleased, and in a post on WhiteHouse.gov by new media director Macon Phillips, it made that clear:

On the same day that we found out that motor vehicle output added 1.7% to economic growth in the third quarter -- the largest contribution to quarterly growth in over a decade -- Edmunds.com has released a faulty analysis suggesting that the Cash for Clunkers program had no meaningful impact on our economy or on overall auto sales. This is the latest of several critical “analyses” of the Cash for Clunkers program from Edmunds.com, which appear designed to grab headlines and get coverage on cable TV. Like many of their previous attempts, this latest claim doesn’t withstand even basic scrutiny.

Silicon Alley's Joe Weisenthal is of the opinion that the White House blog's pointed critique of Edmunds.com over Cash for Clunkers, a program that has run its course, makes the Obama White House look thin-skinned. (A variation on the word "stupid" pops up in Weisenthal's post.) The White House new media operation is in some ways a strange hybrid. Organized in the White House hierarchy as part of the White House communications team, it seems to be using its innovative blog here as more or less the online component of the traditional White House press operation -- albeit with a more bloggy, calling-folks out-by-name feel to it. Smart? Inappropriate? Inevitable, given the flattened way media works today where information flows from sources traditional and otherwise? You be the judge, and let us know in the comments.

*Note: Not an actual person. (Photo credit: ThreadedThoughts)

We linked yesterday to a piece from Slate's Chris Wilson in which he made the case that White House's switch to the open-source content management system Drupal for its WhiteHouse.gov site and related projects was a horrible, miserable mistake. Now Conor McNamara, developer with the web firm DPCI, offers a point-by-point refutation of Wilson's main arguments, rooted in Drupal's admittedly unique way of doing things. Where Wilson says "Drupal knows best," for example, McNamara counters with, "No, Drupal is cautious about which users can do what, and with good reason." McNamara also more eloquently explores something we rambled on about yesterday: that whatever Drupal's challenges and quirks on the back end might be, what matters is the end users' experience with WhiteHouse.gov. Worth a read.

(A source challenges the wisdom of taking Wilson's advice on these matters at face value by sending along a link to a studiously contrarian piece from May 2008 in which Wilson advocated that Barack Obama drop out of the Democratic primary. The premise? Hillary Clinton would go down in defeat against John McCain, and a chastened Democratic party would anoint Obama its leader going into 2012.)

(Photo credit: Andre Molnar, via Volacci)