Is Barack Obama Wildly Over-Exposed, Deeply Secretive, Or Building A George Bush-Like Fortress? NYT: Yes.

From "How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan," Peter Baker's page-one reconstruction of the situation-room discussions that led to the President's recent decision to expand the war effort, Sunday, December 6:

And in another twist, Mr. Obama, who campaigned as an apostle of transparency and had been announcing each Situation Room meeting publicly and even releasing pictures, was livid that details of the discussions were leaking out.

“What I’m not going to tolerate is you talking to the press outside of this room,” he scolded his advisers. “It’s a disservice to the process, to the country and to the men and women of the military.”

From "The Lady and the Tiger," Maureen Dowd's op-ed column on the White House social secretary's handling of the party-crasher episode, Sunday, December 6:

The Obama White House is morphing into the Bush White House with frightening speed. Its transparency is already fogged up.

From "Reality TV’s Glare Hits High Office," David Carr's Media Equation column on the Obama White House's willingness to appear frequently on television, Monday, December 7:

When Barack Obama became president, he promised a “new era of openness.” After almost a year of a media diet that seemed to be all-Obama, all-the-time that concluded in a reality-program couple crashing a state dinner at the White House, I’d be O.K. with the kimono closing a bit.