If the Obama campaign represented a sleek, new iPhone kind of future, the first day of the Obama administration looked more like the rotary-dial past.
Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy yesterday, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software, and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.
What does that mean in 21st-century terms? No Facebook to communicate with supporters. No outside e-mail log-ins. No instant messaging. Hard adjustments for a staff that helped sweep Obama to power through, among other things, relentless online social networking.
“It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs.
How the hell are they supposed to play WoW on that shit? I mean, the guy’s giving up cigarettes. Don’t make him go cold turkey on the Crackberry.
No outside e-mail accounts, eh…
Well, I guess we’re gonna be able to trace all of the astroturfing and sockpuppetry now…
And I guess all of the Brownshirt action-alert traffic will be subject to FOIA scrutiny…
Silly me, that’s assuming any of the press sees anything wrong with the never ending campaign…
They will ignore all of the regulations, Bob. Count on it.
It’s the campaign that never ends
It just goes on and on my friends
Somebody raised some money then not knowing what he’d done
And they’ll keep on a-raisin’ it forever just because
I wouldn’t be surprised if they still used DOS based software.
They’re gonna have to resort to communique-by-tin-foil-hats … just like the Republicans did.
sigh. I miss Karl Rove’s voice in my head.
What, you didn’t have the nasal implant, Carin?
My pet guinea pigs relayed the Dark Master’s orders daily. You two should have opted for the Familiar, it’s a lot less complicated than the surgical option.
Somehow, this is due to <bRAAAAACIST policies…
I mean, why have any security policies; what are those paranoid secret service types worried about..?
Everyone in the whole world loves us now right..?
The age of Obama has begun; peace, love, and hapiness are breaking out everywhere…
Those regulations were simply for, you know, haters like those in the Booooooooosh! administration; they don’t apply to <the one!…
At least this is what we’ll be told the first time they violate security protocol…
It’ll probably be Favreau, going to Doc Weasels site or something…
Meh, this is a non-issue anyway. Our new Chimperor will reveal his will to us in his good time…
Some people wake up and thank their maker, I wake up and say thank you Barack Obama!
Has anybody noticed that Barack already won the Iraq war?
I mean in two days he did what took GW 6 years?
WOW!
The Excuses Administration today blamed somebody else for everything that went wrong…
security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.
Security regulations are over-rated anyway. Who needs them when everybody loves you anyway? By executive order, staff will be mypaging and facebooking out of the west wing any day now.
Coming soon from the 0bama 0!dministration: The Ministry of Blaming Past Presidents for Everything that Goes Wrong on teh 0!ne’s Watch (aka MinBlame).
Hmm. The zero substitution doesn’t look quite as subtle in that there “Georgia” font…
Axelrod will ignore the rules and establish outside channels of communications to his Myrmidons. Count on it. He’ll also get caught, but skate.
Nostradamus gots nuttin’ on me, boss…
Coming soon, “Unlimited Access” II the sequel.
Four years of the worst moments of both the Clinton and Carter administrations. All compressed into a zip file called the Obama administration. Unpacking will be dangerous.
Funny, they didn’t actually mention any “outdated computer software.” Just rules preventing them from endless IM chatting and hanging out on MySpace.
This is the mature administration? Gag. They sound like whiny high school freshmen. “You mean, I can’t, like, you know, text my friends in class? OMG!”
As an Atari 8 bit enthusiast and early pioneer, I take great offense at the above quote.
Mr. Burton, expect a call from my attorney.
“This is the mature administration?”
Funny you should say that – on my Bloomberg headline screen this morning, there was an article by the excreable Margaret Carlson titled something like “Obama Puts the Grown-Ups Back In Charge.” I do hope Ms. Carlson’s face makes repeated contact with a cheese grater.
BTW, it’s been two days since the O! assumed his Grand Excellency, and still no welfare check at Casa Camembert. Epic. Failure.
Every thing old.
Is new again.
This will be the farce time we hope.
and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.
Wait, I thought they were all circumventing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and hiding their communications??? The left said so!!!
Mossberg500 –
Show me a DOS-targeted virus that doesn’t come on a floppy.
Sorry, but a NorTel DMS100 is hardly new. They were old when I was but a n00b in the telco bidniss 15 years ago.
It does provide the equivalent of a local telephone exchange in house, which is certainly advantageous for the folks keeping the bad guys out. But it’s hardly “state-of-the-art”, more “we dicked around with the ancient OS to make it recognize and work with the IP stack”.
Trying again as a post got eaten.
The system referenced was installed in Oct. 1988 in the WH and the Clinton’s complaint was in Jan 1993. Just over 4 years later.
From other readings, the link to which probably ate my comment, the switch had been set up to handle 1000 calls per hour and crashed under a 65,000 call day in Jan. 1993. The telco involved came in and reconfigured it to handle 100,000 calls per hour at a cost to the telco of $600,000 and did not bill the government for it. From and article in Wired Jan. 1994.
All I was saying is this seems to be the typical new Democrat mantra. Republicans are old and can’t use any thing new and cool.
an not and
While I expect the White House isn’t top end electronics, it probably is being grossly exaggerated by the press and the Democrats because it fits the narrative that geoffb mentioned above.
How the hell are they supposed to play WoW on that shit?
Crap, what server is he on? I’ll go rob his guild bank. Maybe corpse-camp him if it’s a PvP server…
security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.
Didn’t Sarah Palin take a shitload of flack for having an outside email account?
Oh, right: some are more equal than others. I forgot.
Just wait until the first time Barky’s Crackberry account gets pwned.
Sinner: the Atari 8 bit was a fine computer. Vastly more sophisticated and less expensive than the Apple models of the day.
Of course, this Burton character is probably talking about the Atari VCS, since he referenced the XBox.
Here is another way to view this.
During the campaign it was an almost daily ritual to scrub the Obama website of statements, pictures, or other content that proved to be wrong or embarrassing sometime after it was put up.
This may or may not be fine in a campaign but the Presidency of the United States is not the Pee Wee leagues. When the US gets a sniffle other nations come down with colds, flu, and pneumonia. You can’t just hit “undo” and cure it.
Great. Buncha fucking teenagers have taken over the WH.
#29 geoffb:
And that is exactly why organizations have people who are tasked with putting out messages and responses and do not leave it to just anyone. And why simple, easy, communication systems such as IM, e-mails, etc. are restricted. One wrong message and that organization (and that staffer) are F*U*C*K’d in the U*S*A. I am sure those little staffers will have the definition of ‘discretion’ rammed bodily into their heads before the first week has gone by.
I certainly hope and pray it is so.
Who though, will do the same for Obama and Biden? No one can, and that will be a worry. Some laughs too but more worry.
let’s not forget ROVE!!’s RNC funded laptops. which is what I figure will happen here, but nobody will care because it will be “new and improved”.
The Obamabots are just sooooo tech-savvy, you know. I’m sure they text their BFFs in the media during White House staff meetings and they post video from their iphones on their personal blogs. Just wait until they find that they are not allowed to connect their Wiis to the West Wing LAN!
GOP = old and tired, Dems = the new hotness. You can see it on TMZ.
You feel me?
It matters not. They own the House, Senate and Executive. If they don’t produce, they can forget about excuses.
You gave away half a trillion of my money, but you didn’t have the tools to do the job and you need more time? Try Bush’s dog ate my homework, kids. It won’t get you any more slack, but it would be funnier.
Well, Obama did promise openness and transparency in his administration. Which he will apparently achieve by having his staffers post everything they can get their hands on on Facebook and Yahoo.