Blogging Cabinet Secretaries

Okay, so someone in her office will actually write the posts. But new Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has vowed to be a regular poster to DHS Leadership Journal and to expand the use of the Transportation Security Administration's Evolution of Security blog.

While it'll probably take her time to get up to the level that Peter Orszag reached when he was at the Congressional Budget Office, I think it's a good thing that Napolitano is jumping into the blogosphere. I know not everyone reads blogs, and not everyone is fond of the form. But they serve two good purposes: transparency, and responsiveness. Blogging lets Napolitano give readers a sense of what she's up to and what her schedule is like. And even if it's not anything as official as comments on a Federal Register notice, blog comments give readers a place to weigh in, creating at least a sense of dialogue.

Blogging also, frankly, gives Napolitano a chance to show off her personality, a little. Even if she's making stiff jokes about rooting for the Cardinals in the Super Bowl, at least she comes across as a person. Too often, I think, Cabinet Secretaries seem impossibly out of reach, especially when they're elevated from state-level positions. They don't seem like real people, they're not elected so they're not accountable or familiar from the pace of a campaign. Blogging is a way to step beyond that and put faces on more parts of government. Whoever's writing Napolitano's entries should strive for a more natural voice for her. But that they're doing it at all is progress.