Blackberry This

Have you been following the Blackberry-bama crisis? It seems that the soon to be beatified President has been battling with his security team about his links to the outside world. He, like many of us, has become Blackberry-dependent. (One might note that he’s already out of touch because he hasn’t jumped on the iPhone bandwagon.) He gets emails, text messages, voicemail, web pages, and synchs his daily schedule with Outlook on his Blackberry…oops, it just occurred to be me why no iPhone: iPhone is white, Blackberry is, well, you know…

The Secret Service and White House ComSec folks are telling him he can’t be walking around with that thing in his pocket, triangulating his position, probing his files, subjecting his correspondence to intelligence and hacker probes. He, being the man-of-the-working-class (albeit one who never held a productive job), says he needs it to stay in touch. He refuses to be isolated like those nasty old Republicans before him who didn’t know the price of a half-gallon of milk and had never seen supermarket scanner checkout. He will keep his Blackberry to break free of the circle of yes-men who will surround him and get the “real” word from the street.

Commendable, but absurd!

Maybe if he can’t trust his most trusted advisors to give him the honest word off the street, he needs to get some new advisors. I’d be happy to volunteer, as long as I didn’t have to stand too close or associate with Hillary or Rahm. If he chooses yes-men to surround him, he’s not the genius he has been portrayed to be. (I’ve voiced suspicions on that score before, you may recall.)

And, the whole keeping-in-touch canard crumbles when you ask, who is going to have his number? Suppose Joe-the-Plumber is going to drop him a line?

Is he going to have a Facebook page? Can I be on his friends list? Will he be on mine? Will he Tweet me?

This is SOOOOOoooooo much about style and so little about substance, from the train trip to Washington to the wreath-laying at Arlington to the Lincoln Memorial speech and concert to the poet selection and the $150 million price tag. And it is only just beginning.