The Tech Presidency

Tech Transparency in the White House

By Maegan Carberry ⋅ November 18, 2008 ⋅   Email this post ⋅  Digg This ⋅  Share on Facebook ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Arianna interviewed Eric Schmidt last night while she filled in for Rachel Maddow. They touched briefly on the soon-to-be-appointed CTO in the BO administration. A friend sent me this interesting article from Slate yesterday, which questions whether Obama’s web-savvy approach is really just a more democratic way of accessing White House spin.

“If the Obama team wants to use this tool, great. And he should use all the other innovative tools he perfected during his campaign to press his agenda and rally his supporters. But let’s not claim it’s an advance in transparency. Obama shouldn’t get credit for transparency, which is hard and bold, when he’s merely harnessing new technology for his self-interest.”  Full commentary from Slate here.