So there has been quite a bit of hullabaloo about if President-Elect Obama will use e-mail, and more specifically his BlackBerry, in the White House. As far as I can tell this seems to have started with a piece in the New York Times. It’s branched out into a number of publications, many have suggested he’ll have to give it up, that this is part of being President, some say he shouldn’t. The concerns have centered around the Presidential Records Act and security concerns. These are bogus concerns. There is no technological reason the President’s e-mails can’t be properly stored and archived. There is also no reason to think that sensitive information can’t be protected electronically, frankly you could just avoid emailing sensitive information but use e-mail for non-sensitive issues. Bogus concerns trumped up by those concerned with change.
As someone who studies politics, as both a practiced human activity and as social science, there is one thing that is clear, politics cannot happen in isolation. Isolation is the realm of tyranny and rulers, not the realm of politics and governors. To be a good President, to truly represent us as a nation, one must be connected to the public and to it’s politics. The Founding Fathers created the United States Government as an institution that protected and enshrined politics as the center of the way we govern ourselves. They modeled, in principal, our government off of classical Greek ideas of the polis, the public space. A place reserved for politics to keep out tyranny, a place where all citizens1 are equal in their potential for excellence. A good politician in both the polis and in American Government are connected to the public, this connection allows them the flexibility and capability to act.
In the days of the early American Republic being connected to the public literally meant opening the doors of the White House. In the early 20th Century it meant traveling the country by train and car to hear the voices of citizens. In the mid-20th Century it meant more, and included television as a medium of public discussion.2 In the early 21st Century it means the internet, and e-mail, and BlackBerrys. For President Obama to be connected in the best possible way with the public he must have access to the communication tools of our time. The New York Times article tells us he will be the first President to have a computer at his desk int he Oval Office, this is a step in the right direction but isn’t everything, he should have every tool at his disposal. He is the President after all.
The Wall Street Journal article reminds us that we’re an increasingly connected populace, using e-mail, and IMs, and social networking. I’m not suggesting that the “Change We Need” is a President with a Facebook page (although he does have one, just not one he personally manages) just one that is connected to the world in the same ways we are. Good politicians are connected to the public, and like it or not, this is the way we increasingly connect with each other. As such it’s the way we can increasingly interact and connect with the President, and this can only mean good things for our politics, our nation, and the public.
Update: Here is exactly what I want to hear out of my President-elect.
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The Greeks obviously didn’t have a great track record for equality as only free men were citizens but the model remains the same it’s only the idea of citizens that has expanded in modern times to be more inclusive, and rightly so. ↩
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President Johnson had three televisions in the Oval Office, one for each of the networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS, and had a switch at his desk that allowed him to switch which produced sound through the speakers. ↩
I'm Trevin Ward, I'm a Political Science Student at Iowa State University in Ames, IA.