"Take that suckahs!"
Fresh off the Polar, I mean Obama, Express’ steamroll into Union Station in DC yesterday, Barack Obama will be inaugrated Tuesday in a most historic day in the history of this nation. But what the president-elect may be most giddy about is that he has decided to keep his BlackBerry firmly attached to his belt after taking the oath to be our nation’s 44th President.
For months, experts have expressed concern about potential security breaches of Obama’s electronic gadget of choice. Not to mention the complexities of the Presidential records deal.
However, he has remained steadfast in his desire to keep his BlackBerry to stay in touch with the outside world.
Obama told CNN’s John King that his BlackBerry is just one of a number of tools that he will use to “break out of the bubble” of the White House, so the average American can still communicate with him.
“That if I’m doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an email me and say, ‘what are you doing?’ Or, ‘you seem detached,’ or ‘you’re not listening to what is going on here in the neighbourhood,’” Obama told John King. “I want to be able to have voices other than the people who are immediately working for me be able to reach out and send me a message about what’s happening in America.”
Research in Motion offers encryption on their BlackBerry’s (and how much are they loving this publicity?). Yet government officials have tried to sway Obama to use a government approved phone device – Yes, cringe, the Palm Treo on Windows Mobile. Atrocious.
But Obama seems intent on being the first Black(Berry) President, saying, “Now, my working assumption, and this is not new, is that everything I write on e-mail could end up being on CNN anyway. So I make sure to think before I press send.”
