RSSFirst signs of the Obama administration's technological aptitude
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published November 6, 2008, 4:40 PM
The early choices to lead the transition team for President-Elect Obama not only indicate the diversity of background that he promised during his campaign, but also a continuing attention toward comprehending modern technology.
Not quite two days after his historic election as the nation's 44th president, Barack Obama's transition team already has an active Web site. Located at change.gov, it maintains many of the templates used by the Obama campaign, though very quickly tailored for the purposes of maintaining an open forum for citizens to comment on, and contribute to, the process of transition of power in the executive branch.
The leadership of the transition team is already coming together, and right off the bat, the very first choices indicate the same attention to technology literacy that was shown during the long campaign. This afternoon, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D - Ill.) accepted the President-Elect's invitation to be his White House Chief of Staff. Popular among his fellow Democrats and notorious, to say the least, on the other side of the aisle in the House, Rep. Emanuel has long been an advocate for the creation of a National Institute of Science and Engineering, which would provide government grants to technology research efforts, on the order of the existing National Institutes of Health.
In a 2005 interview with Time magazine's Joe Klein, Emanuel pointed out how the level of funding increases for technology research had fallen behind funding for pharmaceutical research and fighting diseases, staying put at about five billion per year. "I'd quadruple it and concentrate on nanotechnology, broadband, and energy," he told Klein.
He then proceeded in that interview to advocate tax incentives for the use of solar and wind power in an effort to reduce the US' dependence on foreign energy -- a call to action that sounded like a blueprint for about one-third of Obama's later stump speeches.
Prior to his election to Congress in 2003, Emanuel served as a senior advisor to former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, and later to Pres. Clinton. He currently chairs the House Democratic Caucus -- effectively serving as ombudsman for his fellow congressmen. During last summer's debate over amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which split his party nearly down the middle on the issue of immunity for telcos, Emanuel sided with Sen. Obama in supporting the compromise legislation backed by Pres. Bush.
"While this bill isn't perfect, the perfect should never be the enemy of the good," Emanuel said at the time. "I applaud the Democrats and Republicans who reached this compromise and produced legislation that deserves support from both sides of the aisle."
Last February, along with Rep. Ed Markey (D - Mass.), Emanuel introduced legislation that would expand government oversight over citizens' health records. It would create an Office of Health Information Privacy and would effectively appoint a "czar" to lead that office, who would report to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. That legislation was reported to committee, from where it has since never emerged.
Also this morning, the Washington Post reported that the co-founder of venture capital firm Rock Creek Ventures, and until recently an executive with Barry Diller's IAC/Interactive Corp., Julius Genachowski, will also serve on the Obama transition team. There, it's being implied, he may assist the President-Elect in nominating new members of the Federal Communications Commission, which Genachowski knows well, having previously served as chief counsel to former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt.
And the Indian press was first to report that Sonal Shah, a former vice president at Goldman Sachs who currently heads up Google's philanthropic division, will also serve the transition team. Shah is well-known in India, where she has assisted non-profit organizations in enabling Indian American students to study and work in India on development projects.
Obama Sin Laden
Score: 0
|What was that? You may start spamming like the other losers?
Score: 0
|what you gonna do, when obamamania runs wild on you?!
Score: 0
|This pic is all you need to know that this is going to be the most awesome administration in U.S. history:
http://flickr.com/photos...kobamadotcom/3009087034/
They say a picture is worth a thousands words, then this is worth a zillion words and then some. :)
Score: 0
|Never mind that the new Chief of Staff is completely insane...or the that the new Economic Adviser is known in her Home State as Jennifer "No Jobs", after bringing the worst recession in memory to her state as Governor.
Killer team...Too bad it's the Country they'll be killing.
Score: 0
|I don't understand what you mean at all. You make it sound like no one has been using laptops for the last 10+ years????
Score: 0
|Take a second look at the pic. Does that look like just another crappy PC laptop to you? That, I'll have you to know is a MacBook Air made by the most awesome company on earth. Oh no, that's no ordinary laptop. In fact it's not a laptop at all because Apple does not make laptops they make notebooks. Peace out my brotha. :)
Score: 0
|"made by the most awesome company on earth"...
Disney doesn't make laptops. :)
Score: 0
|You've completely lost touch with reality, haven't you?
Score: 0
|It is fascinating to watch so many project their wants, needs and fantasies upon the Rorschach blot known as Obama.
Now, let's watch what the oh so balanced and bi-partisan(sic) Democratic Congress gives us! Yup, Pelosi and Reid are going to suddenly become bi-partisan.
Oops! Sorry to interject a bit of reality into the hallucination. After all, according to the pundents on Oprah, all history will now be known as 'pre-Obama' and 'post-Obama'.
Yeah...right.
And to think that in the Frontline special on McCain and Obama, they recount the story of Obama attending the Committee hearing where chairman Biden runs on and on and on and on ...and the aids are ecstatic as Obama slips them their first note ever!!! only to read: "Shot me. NOW! PLEASE!"
Why does this seem like prologue?
Pardon me, as I need to stop laughing...
Score: 0
|With all of these hostile post of yours it's quite obvious you're one angry and miserable person. You really should seek counseling for that.
Your the kind of guy that either goes postal on the job or kills everybody at home and then finally puts a bullet in his own head. Seriously, you really need to calm down and seek medicated help.
Score: 0
|Gee parrot, care to post the same claim a few more times?
Hostile? LOL! Oh, because I don't subscribe to some fantasy world where you feel safer and more coddled? And where others see through your crap... Don't worry, you can relax and go back to sleep. All is well in your fantasy land where the world's troubles just fade away in post Obama time.
You are just one of many who would give Edmund Burke pause. But then I suspect you have never done much more than sit on your @ss anyway...
Score: 0
|Would somebody explain how a president-ELECT has the right to use the .GOV TLD for his totally partisan and self-serving infomercial? But hey, whats one more broken law to get us a black president? Yessir, I sure am glad to see that we don't let things like the constitution or the truth get in the way of "change". Anybody planning on volunteering for Obama's private army? I bet the benefits will be awesome.
Score: 0
|From Keith Thurston of the GSA
"The Office of the President-elect is specifically recognized by federal law, specifically – The Presidential Transition Act of 1963, as amended (3 USC 102 note). It is a unique entity that is entitled to government support while still retaining characteristics of a private organization."
http://www.gsa.gov/Porta...SIC&contentId=24780
Score: 0
|So everyone has to have a Facebook account now?
Yawn. This thread is even more insipid than the usual nonsense.
Now, one can only wonder if anyone is aware that it is Congress' role to determine and allocate and approve funding...
Score: 0
|This afternoon, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D - Ill.) accepted the President-Elect's invitation to be his White House Chief of Staff.
Isn't this the guy who mailed dead fish a pollster he didn't like?
Score: 0
|The best Rahm Emanuel story is not the one about the decomposing two-and-a-half-foot fish he sent to a pollster who displeased him...
No, the definitive Rahm Emanuel story takes place in Little Rock, Ark., in the heady days after Bill Clinton was first elected President.
It was there that Emanuel, then Clinton's chief fund-raiser, repaired with George Stephanopoulos, Mandy Grunwald and other aides to Doe's, the campaign hangout.
Suddenly Emanuel grabbed his steak knife and, as those who were there remember it, shouted out the name of another enemy, lifted the knife, then brought it down with full force into the table.
''Dead!'' he screamed.
The group immediately joined in the cathartic release: ''Nat Landow! Dead! Cliff Jackson! Dead! Bill Schaefer! Dead!''
Now there's a guy who will help bring about hope and change...eh? A great choice for a bi-partisan" cabinet if ever there was...
Score: 0
|Let's see how oprah's messiah handles net neutrality right off the bat. If he's unwilling to attack that issue head on, then he's the fraud we all knew he was.
Score: 0
|So ... he promised a bi-partisan cabinet and the first guy he hires is the single most partisan senator on the hill. Man, caught in his first lie that quickly?
What's next? He can't back out on all that free money he promised his "supporters," they'd lynch him for certain.
Score: 0
|I keep hearing this from Republicans, but I don't really understand that argument. How does having Emanuel (not a senator) as the Chief of Staff somehow make it impossible to have a bi-partisan cabinet? This is especially the case when Emanuel was already the most likely candidate for Chief of Staff even before Obama was even close to being elected (who was actually surprised exactly?). The Chief of Staff is an administrator, not a policy adviser. A bi-partisan cabinet does not mean you fill it with centrists.
Score: 0
|LOL. Don't be a sore loser. Your hero, John McCain just might get into office when he's 90. He'll make a fine president yet. :)
Score: 0
|^This^
You can't tell he's not going to be bi-partisan by the first guy he brings in.
Score: 0
|The Chief of Staff is the go-between. If you want to speak to the President, you go through him. If he doesn't want you to speak to the President...you won't.
Score: 0
|I hope this has an impact on the stock market tomorrow :)
Score: 0
|President Elect Barak Obama is a Mac user. What else can you expect from a Mac user except technological aptitude.
Why do you think I'm so incredibly intelligent and sophisticated? There's not a single dumb Mac user in the world. We're the brains behind all science and technology.
So if you want in on the smart club get a Mac.
Score: 0
|"incredibly intelligent and sophisticated"
You keep using those words. I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.
Score: 0
|That makes no sense. Obviously, *you* have a Mac.
..and you're a complete gibbering idiot.
Score: 0
|I've always maintained that the Mac is for people who want the machine to tell them what to do.
Mac makes that a prominent feature in their marketing.
Limited computer acumen is the order of the day there.
Score: 0
|You need to qualify that statement. For years MAC has had the reputation of the "dumb-man's computer", because they were designed for any first time user to learn to use very quickly.
Score: 0
|I also have a Mac (even Pro!), I may start my president campaign now!
my comments at http://www.commentino.com/orim
Score: 0
|LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are not that many people that use a MAC that understand the difference between a cable modem and a router. I've seen this one thing too many times for me to agree with you. Many of these people still think that they are not connected to the internet until they open their browser. You ask them if their wireless network is secure and you get a very confused look from them. Many of them think they have "wireless internet" because they have a wireless router with absolutely no understanding of the difference. I've seen all of this too many times. It's no different from Windows users. Being a MAC user does not mean what your saying it means. It might be that way with you...but the average user is NOT that bright either way.
Score: 0
|Mac user vs. PC user and who is smarter is irrelevant. I have used both for a long time. Bought the first 128K Mac for $2500 in 1984. Both platforms have their merits. I used to be a "Mac Fanatics". Whatever platform is fine as long as you can get the task done. Sometimes it is mandated by your employer anyway.
Score: 0
|One web site after the election and Scott of BetaNews is already duly impressed. This is a "tech" web site and we need more than that to start hyperventilating. Do we really need another agency to give away our hard-earned money? Is this a duplication of others?
Score: 0
|Popular among his fellow Democrats and notorious, to say the least, on the other side of the aisle in the House, Rep. Emanuel has long been an advocate for the creation of a National Institute of Science and Engineering, which would provide government grants to technology research efforts, on the order of the existing National Institutes of Health.
That's certainly a polite way of saying the Republicans hate him.
The very first guy, and in reality the most powerful, staff member Obama brings onboard in his "post-partisan" administration is someone despised by the other side (for good reason). So much for change.
Score: 0
|His "Centerist" sheepskin cloak is coming off, perhaps?
Score: 0
|Yeah...and active web-site tells us what?
No, the first real litmus test for Obama will be the Union voting(Secret Ballot). If he lets that pass, we know he's swung far left. Denying the right of a secret ballot in *any* vote is a complete departure from "Democracy".
As for his tech know-how, if he personally doesn't have it, he can organize it. One needs only to look at he accomplished online leading up to the election. No matter how you feel about the guy, that was impressive.
Score: 0
|The active website means he's at least bothering to still use it now that he's won, which is at least something. Though it doesn't mean much more than that.
"Denying the right of a secret ballot in *any* vote is a complete departure from "Democracy"."
Is there someone suggesting that secret ballots shouldn't be allowed? That's a ridiculous thing to suggest.
Score: 0
|Many are suggesting the Obama is now indebted to the AFL-CIO since they mobilized 250,000 campaigners for him and in return they want the a law allowing them to identify workers who vote against unionization. I don't think Obama has come out and said he will support this.
Score: 0
|Check out the "Employee Free Choice Act".
Not only is it a suggestion, there's strong support for it in both the house and senate meaning it may take a Presidential Veto to kill.
This will very likely hit soon, thus my reasoning that this may be the first litmus test.
Score: 0
|so if he (OBAMA)supports the "Employee Free Choice Act" he is a COMMIE SOCIALIST ?
Score: 0
|Does this mean when a UNION voter votes, they want to watch him vote? and who he votes for?!!
Score: 0
|yep yep, god bless a free country huh:)
Score: 0
|Yes and he supports the terrorists too.
Score: 0
|He's not a commie or a socialist, dummy.
He's the AntiChrist.
His first act won't be canceling secret votes or even killing net neutrality. His False Prophet has already told us what's coming.
"We will think their initial reaction to the coming international crisis will be wrong."
The AntiChrist intends to prove himself by deploying and using Nuclear weapons, thus tipping off World War Three. This will be his first act.
His last will be an eternal series of unholy screams from the Lake of Fire.
Oh, and Bill Gates is God. (No, really. That part is true.)
Score: 0
|ok......
.
.
.
.
Score: 0
|*laughing*
Excellent response. ;)
Score: 0
|