Who has time to blog? Presidential cabinet members

It's Monday morning, and as usual, I'm rounding up ideas for posts. (I've been known to grumble about finding time to blog when other tasks seem more important).

But this morning, the AP tells me that two members of the presidential cabinet have MADE time to launch their own blogs, and I've got metaphorical egg on my face.

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and Michael Chertoff of Homeland Security are the first of President Bush's cabinet to contribute to the blogosphere.

Well, I had to see this for myself, so I logged on to Leavitt's first.

I was impressed.

He writes the posts personally. He responded to comments from his original post on SCHIP and even links to a WaPo article about a Nobel prize winner (not Al, though). And he performed his own six-week evaluation as a blogger. He also has an amusing entry that compares "personalized medicine" to purchasing new golf clubs. ("The golf professional said to me, “now that we know how you align your clubs (medication) with your game (ailments), we can fit you properly.")

Then I browsed to Michael Chertoff's.

It's certainly not as easy to navigate, and Chertoff isn't the sole contributor - he has help from Customs & Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration.

The first post I saw was on IED attacks, which the Post covered with a front-page story recently (no link to that article ... ).

Although the majority of the posts seem to be rehashed speeches with a clear agenda, "An American Story" breaks from that mold. Chertoff links to an Op-Ed piece about legal immigrants who work for the U.S. government while praising government servants.

But don't take my word for it - check it out for yourself. And let us know what you think.

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor