The White House Petitions Website has been operating since the fall of 2011. In that time, few, if any, substantive, thoughtful and appropriate petitions have made their way through the process, garnered the requisite number of signatures and received a thoughtful response from the White House.
The website has instead been mostly treated as a joke. Petitions for a reality show with Vice President Biden, to deport Piers Morgan, multiple petitions to allow states to secede from the union, to "ban" Dianne Feinstein among countless others, have proliferated. With greater press coverage will come greater abuse of the site, which wastes government's time.
The Petitions site was a good idea. It has now become a waste of government resources. The Obama Administration should shut it down.