Skip to Main Content | Skip to Categories | Skip to Search
| In conjunction with an investigation of the influence lobbyists have on the Obama administration, The Washington Post has released a database that registers the more than 2.2 million guestbook entries that have been made by those passing in and out of the White House between January 2009 and January 2012. The massive trove gives a keyhole look at what it’s like to live, work, and socialize in one of the centers of American power. The White House is part office building, part residence, and part stage on which the drama of national and global politics is played out. From state dinners to powwows with corporate titans to movie screenings with Steven Spielberg, this easily searchable database allows anyone to cast a magnifying glass over the comings and goings around the nation’s president. The Daily Beast collects the highlights from the White House guest book. (Credit: AP Photos) See the Full Story at The Daily Beast |
|
| The Sultan of Silicon Valley hosted the first official “town hall” gathering for Obama’s reelection push in April 2011 at Facebook’s Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters, and Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes was a key figure in shaping the Illinois senator’s new-media campaign leading up to the 2008 election. The Zuck and vice president of communications Elliot Schrage stopped by the White House in July 2008 for a meeting with senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) See the Full Story at The Daily Beast |
|
| The media mogul, talk-show host, and philanthropist seems to have seen more of Michelle than Barack, logging two of her five White House visits with the first lady. After rumors swirled that Winfrey wouldn’t endorse Obama—or any candidate—for fear it may cause viewers of her own network to tune out, she told reporters in January 2012 that she was “proud” of the president and backed him “100 percent.” (AP Photo/Elise Amendola) See the Full Story at The Daily Beast |
|
| After plumbing the ocean’s deepest depths, taking a trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue probably seems a little blasé. The Canadian director and explorer said in a recent interview with The New York Times that he feels “a sense of disappointment in Obama that promises were not kept.” The Titanic director made an “Oval Office drop-by” in April 2010. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan) See the Full Story at The Daily Beast |
|
| She probably didn’t wear her meat dress to this appointment. Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, stopped by the White House on Dec. 6, 2011, in the company of her mother, Cynthia B. Germanotta, according to White House records. (AP Photo/Ilgan Sports, Yang Kang-sam) See the Full Story at The Daily Beast |
|
| The archbishop of New York and prince of the Catholic Church talked regularly about his visits to the White House after a contretemps over birth control put him at odds with the president earlier this year. The avuncular Dolan has been to the White House on five occasions, according to the guest logs. (AP Photo/Mel Evans, File) See the Full Story at The Daily Beast |
|
| We don’t know what Obama calls Hewson, but most of the world knows him as Bono. The Dublin rocker has collaborated with the president on his AIDs activism and other social issues, and rose to Obama’s defense in the opinion pages of The New York Times in 2009 after Obama was awarded a Nobel Prize. Bono has checked in at the White House four times according to the logs. The color of the sunglasses he was wearing on each occasion was not recorded. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) See the Full Story at The Daily Beast |
|
| The New Yorker editor and former Washington Post reporter has impeccable Obama credentials, even if his decision to run a satirical cover that caricatured Barack and Michelle Obama’s sharing a terrorist fist bump had him making explanatory talk-show rounds back in 2008. The author of the minutely reported The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama seems to have made his peace with the president, however. Remnick shows up on two dates in the guest book, including a March 2011 “Lunch With POTUS.” (AP Photo/Kathy Willens) See the Full Story at The Daily Beast |
|
| It’s well known that the Kentucky gentleman is an Obama pal and supporter, and the Ocean’s Eleven star recently hosted a reelection fundraiser at his Los Angeles home that netted $15 million for the president’s war chest. George T. Clooney has logged two visits to the White House, one of which included a stop in the Oval Office. (AP Photo/Mannie Garcia) See the Full Story at The Daily Beast |
|
| The JPMorgan chief executive was considered more or less lily-white among Wall Street, and the Democrat has been called Obama’s “favorite banker.” But Dimon fell from grace recently when it came to light that his bank had lost some $2 billion in a series of trades that went bust, making it clear to many that Wall Street truly is incapable of self-regulation. “Jamie Dimon” appears in the White House logs, but the majority of the banker’s visits—more than a dozen of them—can be found under “James Dimon.” (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma/file) See the Full Story at The Daily Beast |
|
| To those who fret over the ties between government and the financial industry, the multiple visits paid by the Goldman Sachs CEO to the White House have long been a sign that the tentacles of the vampire squid have too tight a grasp on the executive branch. And while its reputation may have been somewhat dimmed with the rest of the banking industry, the chief of what is still fairly called the Street’s most venerable firm clearly has an ear in the Oval Office. Blankfein has been to the White House 14 times, according to the logs, visiting with Lawrence Summers and Valerie Jarrett, as well as the president. Blankfein most recently popped by in January 2011. (AP Photo/David Karp) See the Full Story at The Daily Beast |
|