Obama Wants to Stay In Touch With People

For the last 8 years, we've had a President who got all of his news filtered through his staff. President Bush (43) is probably the least intellectually curious president we've ever had. The isolation he has from the "real world" frightens me and I believe is at least partly responsible for the economic crisis we are currently experiencing as a nation.

Luckily, we were smart enough to elect Barack Obama to be the 44th President of the United States. And his campaign made a big deal of keeping the communication lines open throughout the campaign. But that's the kind of guy he is.

President-elect Barack Obama wants to remain in contact with Americans. And to that end he is fighting to keep his Blackberry. That may sound a bit ridiculous with all the bigger issues we are facing, but he believes keeping it will make him a better President and I agree.

"I'm negotiating to figure out how can I get information from outside of the ten or 12 people who surround my office in the White House," he said. "Because one of the worst things I think that could happen to a president is losing touch with what people are going through day to day."

Thank you President-elect Obama. Thank you for living up to our expectations. Thank you for being intellectually curious enough to want to seek out the truth for yourself. Thank you for running into our economic crisis head on now and not waiting until January 21st. Thank you for understanding that being President can be isolating and there is a significant danger in having 100% of your news filtered.

You have many challenges ahead of you. One of them should not be worrying about if you have all of the necessary information. I'm certain that you and the lawyers can work something out with regards to your Blackberry. It's too important to give up on this issue.