There’s been some obsession in this space (and others) about whether president-elect Barack Obama will (or should) maintain his Blackberry while in the Oval Office. Michael Agger of Slate and Jonathan Alter of Newsweek have urged Mr. Obama to keep his Blackberry as way for dissenting opinion to get through to him. Today, Richard Cohen of The Washington Post offers a different view.
He writes:
For some odd reason, Obama has fastened on to his BlackBerry as an antidote to The Bubble. It won’t work. When the BlackBerry is valued for e-mail, it is no different from staff. It will be only as candid as the people on the other end. The First BlackBerry will lie.
There is a remedy of sorts. It is called The Newspaper. It’s somewhat antiquated and often awkward to use, but it will bring news to the president he does not want to hear. The paper is not written with him in mind. The paper does not set out to please him, and it is not seeking a job. The paper will give the president more policy options than his staff will, and more news as well. In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower responded to a question at a news conference by saying, “You are telling me things about my administration that I have never heard.” This is what a newspaper does.
[...] So said President-elect Barack Obama in an interview with John Harwood for CNBC. Okay, so the quote is a bit too Charlton Heston, but it is telling that Mr. Obama is, in his words, “clinging” to his Blackberry. The arguments have been made on both sides, and I’ve written about it here. [...]