January 25, 2010

"As for what Obama reads online, his advisers said he looks for offbeat blogs and news stories..."

Oh? Hi!
Obama is the first truly wired president, the first to have Internet access at his desk and to converse regularly via e-mail. This fingertip access sends him "constantly" online, said one senior adviser...

"I don't think time permits him to be surfing all the time," Axelrod said....
Ha ha. Sounds like he's hooked. He's probably in the comments here as a sock puppet.

107 comments:

Nichevo said...

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! If President Barack Hussein Obama were a sockpuppet here, who would he be? Jeremy? Cedarford? Ritmo? The mind reels.


TW: nessessl. Just has to share that.

d-day said...

Sockpuppet. . . Screenname: Ellie Light

Nichevo said...

d-day, are you sure that's not racist?

AllenS said...

Obama is the first truly wired president, the first to have Internet access at his desk and to converse regularly via e-mail. This fingertip access sends him "constantly" online, said one senior adviser

I don't believe it.

Roadkill said...

As President, he is the ultimate consumer of the country's most highly vetted and presumably most reliable information, yet he wanders around the internet looking for...what,exactly? Information? no. Affirmation? possibly. Escape? Hmmmmm.

Jason (the commenter) said...

I don't believe it. Someone needs to pull a Katie Couric on him in an interview and ask what blogs he reads. Remember, this is a guy who never tweeted on his own twitter account.

Ron said...

Ok...I'll finally fess up...I'm Obama!

Trooper York said...

Seriously, everyone knows that Obama is really Cedarford.

Bill said...

Ok...I'll finally fess up...I'm Obama!

No! I'm Obama!

Chase said...

Welcome, Mr. President. Though this blog is host to a fair amount of conservative thinkers and a smaller amount of liberal thinkers, let me say that as a conservative I do not hate you, nor do I believe that you wish for anything less than what you believe is the best for America. The details and issues are where we disagree.

My true and only advice: read here often and you will get the true measure of where the American people are at on the issues, fears,concerns and cultural middle.

Who knows - if you take your reading here seriously and give and take seriously a little under a pseudonym, you may actually come up with policies supported by the majority of the American people.


So . . . if you begin becoming successful Mr. President, it just might prove that you are a secret Althouse Coffee House regular

mccullough said...

Looks like the White House is still pushing the "Obama is incisiive and thoughtful" trope.

It's getting a bit tiring. They keep telling us he's thoughtful and incisive because he keeps showing us that he is not.

Wow, Obama meets one-on-one with Warren Buffet or Colin Powell or Paul Krugman. He's so much smarter than that moron Bush. What a thoughtful President.

Meanwhile the stimulus package is a disaster, his strategy for Afghanistan is worthless, Gitmo is still open, he can't make a competent response to a very serious attempted terrorist attack, and the health care legislation will increase costs and not extend coverage to everyone (while unemployment is above 10%).

But Obama is a thoughtful man. It's just that what he thinks is wrong.

AllenS said...

I'll bet Obama wouldn't even be able to figure out word verification.

Diamondhead said...

During briefings, his eyes dart nervously at the wikipedia page on his computer screen?

Trooper York said...

Everyone knows that President Obama can only offer The Macho Response!

Palladian said...

"Obama is the first truly wired president"

I'm sure. After all, that teleprompter has to plug into something.

Chip Ahoy said...

Shut up. He is NOT!

Look.

Today the president is being attacked as if he were a salesman who promised us that our problems would wash off in the morning. He never made such a promise. It's time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can't just wave a magic wand and fix everything.

And stuff.

Pete said...

I thought Titus was Obama.

JAL said...

the first truly wired president, the first to have Internet access at his desk and to converse regularly via e-mail

More evidence of either out-of-touchness or emporer status.

George W Bush STOPPED using email when communicating with his girls (was that ... mmm... must have been 2000 ... 10 years ago!) because as POTUS all presidential email would become part of the records saved. He wanted his communications with his daughters and family private.

Does President Obama know that? Is this another "I WILL have my BlackBerry!" issue where the rules do not apply to him? (Are his BlackBerry communications being archived also?)

Or is this "news" release about how cool our president is another case of "Squirrel!" ?

Palladian said...

"Obama is the first truly wired president, the first to have Internet access at his desk..."

Obama may be the first to have Internet access at his desk, but does that really beat the pioneering form of "access" Clinton had installed at that very desk?

Trooper York said...

Well he did email me and told me he really liked Laura Bush's Diary!

Pete said...

Really, this is just another load of BS fed to the media by Obama's handlers with the intention of making him look in touch with things. Nobody has ham-handed as he's been over the year, with the tin-ear he has for the political winds, stays in touch as he's alleged to do. Besides, he flat out doesn't have the time. Or shouldn't.

AllenS said...

Now that I've thought about it, his brother, I believe, has sent me emails from Kenya. Sounds like the two of us are going to make some big money.

Paddy O said...

I think Meade is Obama.

Well, that would explain the vote...

And why there's never been an official "How Obama lost me" post.

Trooper York said...

But for some reason he does not care for Tyler Perry's White House of Pain!

I don't get it.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

"I don't think time permits him to be surfing all the time," Axelrod said

Well, of course NOT. He spends most of his time playing World of Warcraft as a fruity Night Elf hunter named Leogaaasss.

pm317 said...

OMG, he is Ellie Light.

KCFleming said...

No, I am Spartacus.

MikeDC said...

Obama is the first truly weird president

Palladian said...

I wonder if he has the nuclear football linked to his Facebook account?

rhhardin said...

Here's what appears to be a gya-rung off between three Chinese dancers and three Tibetan dancers.

YouTube

The Tibetans come out way ahead, with the hip move.

Also they have fewer moving parts exposed.

Rockette-style synchronization doesn't seem to be part of the genre.

Gideon7 said...

I doubt very much that Obama sends e-mail. The first rule of being President is leave no paper trail. E-mail would be subject to subpoena. Remember Nixon and his tapes?

Steve M. Galbraith said...

President will - correctly - rescind don't ask/don't tell in his SOTU (although I guess Congress will have to formally make the changes).

I guess he really does read Sullivan.

Okay, Trooper York I ain't.

Palladian said...

OMG I M totally d prez!

yS wai!!!!!!

lIk dun meS w me o I wiL blo ^ yor hows w NUKULR BOMBS!!!!!!11 LOLOL ROTFLMAO

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I got an Obama spam from Nigeria..

It said if you vote for me I'm going to give you Health Care for free.

wv - raced

traditionalguy said...

Maybe he pinch hits on Sullivan.

Palladian said...

"President will - correctly - rescind don't ask/don't tell in his SOTU (although I guess Congress will have to formally make the changes)."

Economy continuing to crash and burn? Unemployment at record levels? Administration in shambles? Hey, look over there, everyone! Gay squirrel in uniform!

"I guess he really does read Sullivan."

Someone better lay down the waterproof plastic sheeting in Sullivan's living room on speech night, cause let's just say the juices are really gonna be flowing, so to speak.

Anonymous said...

I seriously doubt that Obama does more than glance at pre-digested tidbits from the Internet, although I think that it'd be cool if Al Gore called him daily to update him on the weather forecast and what the Internets are saying.

Freeman Hunt said...

No, I'm Obama.

I know. I fail myself.

mccullough said...

The article also mentions that Obama reads Andrew Sullivan's blog.

No wonder he's out of touch. I wonder if Obama knows about the favorable treatment Sullivan received from federal prosecutors. You know, that whole rule of law stuff that Sullivan and Obama pretend to agree with.

JAL said...

I started to try to read the article.

Yuck.

I could not do it.

How do they write stuff like that?

I think we all know why.

wv coptor

MikeDC said...

Here's a more interesting thought. If he's out here surfing around, he probably visits a variety of standard sites, probably has a personal email account, and probably has a windows computer with a variety of know back doors.

Who's going to be the enterprising hacker who shows the world the President's personal emails and site history?

Somewhere, a generation of guys are sitting in mom's basement, firing up a batch of pizza rolls, and licking their chops.

JAL said...

Obama and Sullivan

Really.

Methadras said...

If President Barely where a sock-puppet, then he is doing a bad job at that too. Come on President Barely, do your worst, you incompetent fraud.

ricpic said...

Barry's favorite site: chicagobulls.com

rhhardin said...

Ohio newsbunny attempts "Mediterranean" real audio (12:30pm today).

blogging cockroach said...

actually i am president obama
yes how do you think i know so much
about cambridge mass and haavahd eh
and am constantly complaining/explaining
about being an insect as comeuppance for
being a jerk in my past life
well let me tell you
being p o t u s is no picnic either
and i m still trying to figure out
what dreadful things i did in past lives
that made me want to become president
i mean from where i sit being president
of the u s or being a cockroach
are pretty equal except if i were a cockraoch
i could aspire to being a professor again
while as president of the u s i ll be damned
lucky to wind up a cockroach next time

veni vidi vici said...

"Ok...I'll finally fess up...I'm Obama!

No! I'm Obama!"


We are all Obama now.


wv: "orfen" -- no kidding. As in, success has many parents, while failures like us many Obamas are orfens.

Beth said...

Shouldn't that be "Oh? Hai!" ?

blogging cockroach said...

althouse has always been wondering who i am
well this explains it

Palladian said...

"Shouldn't that be "Oh? Hai!" ?"

Srsly!

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KCFleming said...

im in ur blog bein ur prezident

i can has genl motorz?

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...
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Quaestor said...

"Obama is the first truly wired president," says Axelrod.

Wired has a lot of meanings, did you know that, Mr. Axelrod? Wired in what sense? Is Obama connected by wires to something, like a marionette? Or maybe you mean the President is strung-out on blow? Come on, if you're trying to get a little more traction from that threadbare "coolest President, evah!" meme you've got to keep the narrative on the bleeding edge. The President doesn't have a Blackberry (every 11yo girl in America has been through two Blackberries by now) he has a Droid! He isn't the first truly wired president, he's truly wifi. Get it? Geez...

I'm Spartacus! I mean Obama! I'm Obama! (yeah, that's the ticket..)

KCFleming said...

Theosophithtsthththt?

Thufferin' thuccotash!

Big Mike said...

All I want to know is, has anybody ever seen Ritmo and Obama in the same room at the same time? Hmm?

Just sayin'

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dbp said...

Ojai, Ojai. That rings a bell. Did you live there when Steve Austin was there?

Henry said...

Are we sure the Washington Post didn't accidentally pick up a Onion story by mistake?

The president is not cool and detached, we read, because he surfs the Web. This is a portrait not just "nuanced" but "blurred". In law school he worked on the legal implications of Einstein's theory of relativity. He "reveres facts" while weaving into policy the anecdotal stories pulled out of the White House mail.

"If he was poll-driven, we'd be doing better," one senior adviser said ruefully, adding, "but the country would be in a depression."

To quote Sofa King: BWaaaahaaa haaa!

They say you can't make this kind of stuff up, but how can this stuff -- this affected, cliche-hobbled, self-refuting, "nuanced" and "blurred," Saint-Obama-in-the-Bunker chapbook for children -- not be made up?

exhelodrvr1 said...

Hmmm ... who else on the blog has lectured at a prestigious law school?

Meade could actually be Michelle.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

..for starters, Ritmo is an insufferable windbag....

I second that.

Anonymous said...
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bagoh20 said...

His Holy Wiredness needs to check out some new rap video:

Very well done!

Hayek vs. Keynes!

virgil xenophon said...

The Astral Plane, Theo? Just you, Tim Leary., Baba Ram "Be Here Now" Dass and Dennis Hopper's character (or maybe Hopper himself) in the TV series "Crash" all up in "O-Hi" "communing," (among other things) eh? :)

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Quaestor said...

bagoh20!

Excellent. Thanks for the link. Since Lord Zero has been lurking here as Ritmo or garage mahal or whomever maybe he's seen it by now and taken it to heart. Maybe you've just saved our collective ass!

John Stodder said...

Obama's on the net? No wonder he never gets anything done.

JAL said...

I wonder if President Obama is Sir Archy

Oh Theo! You disappoint me! How could you

Anonymous said...
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KCFleming said...

Hayek's da man.

Keynes just got pwnd.

Git down wit da F to da A, Barreh!

bagoh20 said...

It's some lernin' fer da yungins.

Anonymous said...
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Bender said...

"Don't ask, don't tell" was the compromise.

Repealing it would merely go back to the prior policy -- booting folks out even if not asked and even if they didn't tell.

virgil xenophon said...

Theo/

Well, the Moody Blues have a nice little song about Tim L's tours of SF Bay via the Astral Plane--'course he's on a permanent tour now, soon to be joined by our man Hopper, it sadly appears... Hopper, (along with Gary Busey and Bruce Dern, among others) is one of my favorite villainous twisted, "insane-crazies" of all time--both in real life and as a "thespian." Better watch out, tho, his imminent permanent departure for the "AP" leaves only you and Ram Dass! (and maybe Peter Fonda--along with a few million other sixties boomer acolytes--minus Grace Slick--she is/was-always too cynically gimlet eyed. It's gonna get kinda crowded up/out [as the case may be] there on the old "AP" in the next few decades...)

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Lem the artificially intelligent said...

If Obama goes on the internet, shouldnt the internet log be considered presidential materials to be preserved for the archives?

Anonymous said...
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virgil xenophon said...

Blavatsky, wasn't she that broad that used to hang out at "The Swan" pub on Bayswater road just down from the Lancaster Gate tube station opposite Hyde Park, smoking cigarillos
and drinking warm Brandy and Soda neat.? Used to have animated conversations with her there in the afternoon in the early 70s--or maybe it was all just a dream.... :)

Peter V. Bella said...

"Obama is the first truly weird president."

There, all fixed up and corrected.

Beth said...

Maybe you've just saved our collective ass!

Commie.

Big Mike said...

For shame, Beth.

bagoh20 said...

Aren't we way past the point where being on line is considered hip? Seems to me that when you find out your employee is on line a lot, it means he needs firing.

Unknown said...

Nah, he comments over at Ace's all the time. I've seen him. "Barack Obama". Plain as day.

Unknown said...

He also writes to newspapers as Elle Light.

Anonymous said...

Maybe he pinch hits on Sullivan.


I'm sure Sullivan would love it if O pinch hit on him.


'Cause I hear Sullivan's gay.

Beth said...

Hi, Mike!

Scott M said...

I respect the office of the president of the US to have gotten that split-second "uh...what...here?" before I read the whole thing. From the same vein, I have no doubt that if I were to come face to face with him under any circumstances it would be friendly.

Not that I wouldn't ask some tough damned questions though...

dick said...

Sure they didn't just put the letters in wired in the wrong order - how about weird?

XWL said...

One reason previous Presidents weren't 'wired' wasn't that they were technophobes, but because of the Freedom of Information Act rules and fear that non-classified, but possibly personally embarrassing communication would be subject to public disclosure.

I think it's time to file a FOIA request for Obama's complete browser history.

Let's see what he's googled, what he's watched on YouTube, and which blogs he really frequents, and for how long.

It's the public's right to know.

algie said...

Do you think he types off a teleprompter?

Now 'The One' is at it again
He's racking an straining his brain
For a new way to push
The blame onto Bush
As his programs circle the drain

....uuuu..'o^o'..nn!n....algie
Illegitimi nOn carborundum

The Crack Emcee said...

Hello, Mr. President!

lonetown said...

What would Obama's sock puppet name be? Would it refer to some obscure, little known historical figure?

Would he pretend he's black or white? (i just confused myself on that)

Would he snark or try to teach!

I'll be he sounds like Mrs Edwards (theformer).

AllenS said...

Obama would probably try to be a really good one-time commenter than a mediocre long-time commenter.

I thought of that on my own.

Anonymous said...

Axelrod pastes content into the teleprompter.

From Inwood said...

I thought blogging was for The Little People.

richard mcenroe said...

Anybody see a terminal on that desk? Maybe he just tweets on his sooperseekure blackberry. Given how many words he can get through without stumbling sans TOTUS, 140 characters may be all he can handle...

Shanna said...

Looks like the White House is still pushing the "Obama is incisiive and thoughtful" trope.

What is thoughtful and incisive about spending all day playing on the internet? I don’t want the president getting distracted by time sucks like facebook!

Hopefully this is an idiot publicity thing, and not the truth.

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Joe said...

Obama isn't smart enough to be a sock puppet.

He would have to hire a sock puppet to stand in form him.

(Don't believe me, check out Jon Stewart's video of Obama using a teleprompter in a sixth grade classroom. The best part; he fumbles the speech. To sixth graders. Using a teleprompter.)

RebeccaH said...

Althouse, you wish. Obama only looks for blogs and news articles that reinforce his world view. As much as you would like to give him the benefit of the doubt, you aren't it.

Nichevo said...

LOL, Mr. President, please take note:

War != Mafia Wars