A DoD program meant to assist military personnel in registering and voting is drawing Congressional fire over the hiring of a new overseer. A bipartisan group of Congressmen is irked that the Federal Voting Assistance Program has failed to meet the goal of making it easier for those in uniform to participate in the democracy they protect.

While not specifically an Internet issue, the Government Computer News (Yes, I read it. I'm that geeky) article had two passages that caught my eye.

History's Lessons for a Wired White House...Tracking the Evolution of Change.gov...Incoming Administration Faces Information Overload...Palin's Unstoppable Online Power...Just How Historic Was Obama's Presidential Run?...American Diplomacy in the Age of Facebook...and more.

In what can only be seen as a major coup for those of us who have been hoping that the Obama Administration would embrace a saner and more sensible thinking on questions of copyright than is the norm in Washington, Change.gov has swapped a strict copyright policy for among the liberalist of Creative Commons licenses.

Before Broadway shows open in New York City, they're often taken for a trial run out in the American heartland to work out the kinks. And with this latest four-minute installment in Barack Obama's pre-presidential video productions posted on YouTube, you definitely get the feeling that somewhere there's an obsessive director making tweaks before taking a more polished show to Washington DC in seven weeks. (The video's down below.)

With Hillary Clinton set to be nominated as Barack Obama's Secretary of State, New York Governor David Paterson has a tough decision to make - which New Yorker will sit in the U.S. Senate in Clinton's place for the next year, thereby getting a huge leg up as an incumbent until the next general election in 2010.

Names making Gov. Paterson's theoretical list include state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Reps. Nydia Velasquez, Brian Higgins, and Kirsten Gillibrand, and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. But only one potential nominee has a Facebook group lobbying the Governor - environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose father once held the seat.

"Does the Internet Matter?;" The Long Campaign's Lessons for Non-Profits; Should Obama Be Relying on YouTube?; The Promise and Peril of a Wired White House; Register Your Favorites in the Mashable Awards; A Gift from Us to You; and more.

The Obama administration is has started a discussion on their Change.gov site reports Nancy Scola. Launched yesterday, the health care discussion with two members of the transition team, Dr. Dora Hughes and Lauren Aronson, on a wiki on Change.gov. This certainly strikes me as more transparent and constructive than the black hole of resumes with which the site started.

There's just one problem: it's not a wiki.

Letting Us in to the White House; Conventional Wisdom Turns Against CEOs as CTO; Busting Out of the "Finest Prison in the World;" Building the Post-Obama Movement; NASA's Filling CIO Position at the Speed of Light; How Did Times Readers Do in Their Cabinet Bets?; and a good deal more.

"Today we're trying out a new feature on our website that will allow us get instant feedback from you about our top priorities. We also hope it will allow you to form communities around these issues -- with the best ideas and most interesting discussions floating to the top."

Ordinarily, you wouldn't get too excited about reading those words on a website. But when they are on the official blog of the President-elect, things are a little different. In fact, this is a big deal. When you consider that for the last eight years, the occupant of the White House has essentially told the public "you get input once every four years, after that I'm the decider," this is huge.

The next White House Web site should tell us a lot about whether Obama believes what he has said about bringing transparency and accountability to the government.