It’s an image that’s hard to imagine, in today’s times. But one that in 10 or 20 years won’t seem so hard to fathom.
Do presidents surf the Web? Send email? Watch YouTube videos?
Only those closest to President Bush or perhaps President Clinton know the answer to the online aptitude of those men. What about McCain and Obama’s Web and email habits? Will the next president be more connected to the Internet?
Lee Gomes in The Wall Street Journal takes on this issue. He raises the question if presidents, governors and company CEOs for that matter should even be spending any time online or sending or reading email, assuming they’ve got much more important tasks at hand.
Do we want our U.S. presidents to surf the Web or use email? Are they not “connected” if they don’t?
I found this New York Times article from May in which President Bush said he used to use email all the time when he was the governor of Texas. But he stopped emailing when he was elected president. There isn’t even a computer in the Oval Office.
What?
I guess it doesn’t matter when you have people across Washington, D.C. monitoring what you need to know, you’ll know something, when you need to know it. Make sense?
I don’t have a problem with President Bush keeping the Web and email at bay. But will McCain or Obama be the first to put a computer on their desk?
Or actually use the one that’s in the president’s office at Camp David, as shown here:
McCain and Obama have both been seen checking their BlackBerry on the campaign trail. McCain’s email and Web prowess has been largely mocked but perhaps he’s trying harder these days to look “with it.” Would either man drop the email or Web habit when they’re elected?
The holdup seems to be fear of what the emails and Web site visits, as public records, could show in the midst of any kind of political investigation. Imagine the scrutiny if President Bush had used email while Hurricane Katrina was pounding the Gulf coast?
Still, I would bet we will see the next two or three presidents inch closer to using email in office more often, but be extremely mindful of what they are writing – knowing it could come back to hurt them.
Sure, there are also security issues. Are we truly certain no one could hack into the president’s emails? Until we are, they shouldn’t bother.
I’ll close with a thought about Web habits in the Oval Office. Gomes suggests a scenario where presidents are allowed some time to surf, just to find something that interests them, challenge them, stay in touch so to speak with what’s being talked about on the Web.
Pretty sure they can avoid 99% of what’s on YouTube.
But at the very least, some daily time to surf may keep them from ever saying in public, “The Google” or “The Internets.” Not a bad idea, I suppose, from a PR standpoint.
But elections are won on leadership and experience, vision and character. Presidents have difficult jobs. We don’t pay them or choose them to worry about the next big thing on the Web. We trust they’ll stay in touch with the people they need to be in touch with by phone, if they’re avoiding emails and texts for security or privacy concerns.
After all, we just want them to make lots of smart decisions on many, many issues… and keep us from another terrorist attack.
Some of us also like to think of the office holder as a “regular” American. It may be awhile yet, before they are. And that’s okay by me.
