Blackberries, Cyberspace, & Laptops! Oh My! The White House May Go Wireless

A sign of the times. The change in guard could be accompanied with a bunch of new gadgets for the office of The President. The new American image embodied by the first family is like a mash-up of the Cleavers, the Cosbys, and the Jetsons. Well that's the picture I'm painting after surveying the recent coverage of our First Family-elect. One TV Viewer quipped at a preview of last nights' 60 minutes ad, "I hope we don't have to hear about these kids for the next four years!" and I replied, "That's what kids are for." Michelle Obama said in last night's 60 minutes interview that she was excited to move into the White House because her family would get to be together and Barack would be working at home in his immense home office.

What will our future President bring to his new home office? According to Jeff Zeleney in his NYT article, "Lose The Blackberry? Yes He Can, Maybe", the 44th President will be the first to have a laptop on his desk in the Oval Office.

“They could come up with some bulletproof way of protecting his e-mail and digital correspondence, but anything can be hacked,” said Ms. Owen, who has studied how presidents communicate in the Internet era. “The nature of the president’s job is that others can use e-mail for him.”

Technical glitches, hackers, storage space, and obnoxious archived items aside- if the Government really has access to the best technology, there's a lot of items Barack could use to match the efficiency of his Blackberry. Imagine it: a closed circuit Blackberry One Network for the President and his advisers (for official communication only, of course) - just think about how tricked out that phone would be (iPhone? G1? Bold? What are those?). Maybe I'm just dreaming about what I would do if I was president...