A Digital Kid In An Analog World

We've all heard about President Obama and his Blackberry™ obsession. But this was a bit of a shock to read.

Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy yesterday, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software, and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.

What does that mean in 21st-century terms? No Facebook to communicate with supporters. No outside e-mail log-ins. No instant messaging. Hard adjustments for a staff that helped sweep Obama to power through, among other things, relentless online social networking.

"It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs.

And we wonder why the Bush administration never caught Osama bin Laden or never spoke with Middle Eastern leaders. They couldn't even get an outside line! Here's a hint: Dial 9.

McCain Invented The Printing Press?

Johann Gutenberg called MSNBC's Morning Joe today in a rage over the McCain campaign's claim that John McCain invented the printing press.

"This is an outrage!" said Gutenberg. "The McCain campaign may claim that Senator McCain invented the BlackBerry, but to insinuate that he had a hand in the printing press, well that's just nonsense. He was only an apprentice in my shop at the time, mopping floors, refilling inkwells and getting the stains out of my smock."

Gutenberg was referring to McCain advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin's assertion that had it not been for John McCain's work in the Senate Commerce Committee, we would not have the BlackBerry, while completely ignoring the fact that it was a Canadian company that developed the popular wireless handheld device. But we should thank our lucky stars that John McCain knows him some technology.

"He did this," Douglas Holtz-Eakin told reporters this morning, holding up his BlackBerry. "Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce Committee. So you're looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that's what he did."

Gutenberg did say he's had second thoughts on the printing of the Bible. "If I knew then what I know now..." he said while shaking his head as his voice trailed off.

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were at a loss for words as that segment was scheduled for the daily Sarah Palin ass kissing, and quickly broke to commercial.