President Obama took a step toward making his administration more participatory and interactive Thursday. He answered questions that had been submitted to him in a program the White House calls “Open for Questions.”

Everyday Americans submitted questions, including video questions, and rated the questions of others to help determine which the president would answer. The questions he answered, of course, were the ones he and his staff chose.

President Obama promised to make his administration the most open and transparent in history, and taking questions from the public kind of looks like that. But it also kind of looks like a gimmicky, canned publicity stunt, rather than true openness in government.

Real transparency would include fulfilling his campaign promise to post bills online for five days before signing them. The president has now signed 10 bills into law and not subjected any of them to that five-day public review.