Put That Blackberry On Silent!

So Barack Obama was sworn in as President a week ago and the most popular story has not been about the historic event,  the flubbed oath, or even policy.  Everywhere I go all I hear about is Obama's Blackberry (side note: Newsweek's article about the Blackberry was titled "POTUS Gets To Keep His Precious," which I thought was hilarious). Now I am all about technology.  I would be lost without all my gadgets.  In fact, since I got my iPod Touch for Christmas it has not left my sight.  So I completely understand Obama wanting to keep his Blackberry.  But, I do not think the President having a cellphone is a good thing.  It is not the security aspect that I argue with.  I believe that if we can send a man to the moon, we can secure a single cellphone.  My argument is that it may be a distraction.  

A Blackberry is essentially a PDA or a Personal Data Assistant.  We need a devices like that to help us remember appointments, phone numbers and to pick up the milk. The President's job puts him in a different situation.  He has an entire wing of the The White House filled with personal assistants.  Entire departments spend all their time creating the President's schedule.  He does not have to keep track of that.  No one can just pick up a phone and call the President, he calls you.  And in reality the President does not to remember numbers either.  He never has to dial the phone he has his staff call first then he gets on the line.  There are multiple staff members and their only job is deciding who can talk to the President.  The only people that have automatic walk-in privileges (according to TV and movies) are the Chief of Staff and the First Lady.  His own Senior Staffers, Congressmen, Cabinet Members and even the Vice-President need permission to see the President.  Everyone in the world wants to talk to the President it is the staff's job to decide which ones actually get to do it.  That is how the Office works.  When the President is in a meeting that should be all he is focusing on.  He should not be bothered with anything else, because if the President is involved in the meeting you know that it is going to be important.  He does not need the Secretary of Energy emailing to remind him about fuel prices when he is meeting with the Joint Chiefs.  If the Secretary of Energy needs to contact the President he should talk to the staff first.  It is their job to relay the message.  There is nothing that a Blackberry can do that the President's staff does not do already.

I am excited that the new President is so tech savvy.  And I think more technology in the White House is a good thing.  I even hear his staff wants to use Macs instead of PCs, which makes me smile.  But in the case of a Presidential Blackberry this is when people are actually better than a machine.

I will throw in a recommendation here too.  If you want to see how the Office of the President really operates (or at least how I want to believe it operates, I guess I do not know for sure)  watch the television show The West Wing on DVD.  It is very addicting.  My perception of the Presidency and our government has been completely jaded by it, but in a good way.