Obama Team Meets the Real World

Washington Post writes “Staff Finds White House in the Technological Dark Ages,” which sounds pretty funny, and we can all easily believe that the Bush White House was running on Cheney’s old cylindrical phonograph.

But then you read the article, and it just sounds like a bunch of kids who’ve never had a real corporate or government job suddenly found themselves in a standard corporate/government IT environment. Much less entertaining that it sounded at first glance.

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.

Yes, in a real 9-5 job you’re not going to be able to read your Gmail, log in to Facebook, or use instant messaging. These are obvious IT security restrictions that any reasonably sized organization would have in place. That the Obama team was expecting a wide open Internet where they could do anything they wanted just sounds naive and unrealistic.

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

Because everyone should have an Xbox at work.

The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software.

Once again, welcome to a real job. What kind of real office job gives people Macintoshes? And what’s this six-year-old version of Microsoft software? My first was was Windows XP, which would be a good thing — who wants the White House running Vista? Nasty. But XP is a little over seven years old, so that doesn’t sound right.

Maybe it’s Microsoft Office 2003? That sounds reasonable, that’s what I have installed on my work computer, and so far haven’t had any need for anything newer. The only advantage to Office 2007, as far as I can tell, is getting rid of the 65,000 row restriction in Excel. So far I’ve only come close to hitting that at home, I’ve never come close in a work spreadsheet.

Complaining about old operating systems or software in this case seems pointless. These might be kids who just don’t understand that the newest and most expensive software isn’t what you want to be running; you want older, patched, stable software that meets all of your needs. Is there really anything that this “six-year-old Microsoft software” can’t do? I’d be shocked if there was.

UPDATE from the comments:

Wow, the comments on the Washington Post article are just crazy.

What else would we expect after 8 years of the most backwards, technophobic, flat-earth idiots on the planet running the White House?

Now, sure, the Bush/Cheney administration was a mess of backwards, technophobic, flat earth idiots. No complaints. But to think that for some reason they should have wasted tons of taxpayer money on Macintoshes instead of Windows XP, well, that’s just as retarded as Bush was.

And then on the other side you have the right wingers who think that the Washington Post writer complaining is a sign that the Obama White House staffers are all useless 19-year-olds who have probably never even served in the military like a good American:

Idiots! These people want to stroll into the whitehouse with their camera phones and Blackberrys, so they can click, click, click and IM everything over WIRELESS airwaves.

They all want to setup their own Facebook pages. They should be able to e-mail Akmad Osama if they want to, right?

Not a clue about national security. Bunch of sniveling idiots.

were doomed

And then just when you’re laughing at those people for their posts, the Obama supporters just keep coming in and making themselves look like idiots:

What a laugh to see all these old conservative farts on here shaking their canes at the notion of “the Internets.” They haven’t a clue that the Obama campaign wiped the floor with them because of their ignorance. Or, far more importantly, how crucial technology is in the world.

You would think that someone who understood how crucial technology is would understand the importance of a reasonable IT security policy, and how that doesn’t include brand new untested software on everyone’s machine and access to whatever website and protocols they want to access on the White House network.

Some of the commenters wants to stick Macs in the White House while they’re at it. Yeah, not a very good idea either. Why waste taxpayer dollars on boosting Apple’s marketing budget just because people who are used to Macs want to complain about having to use Windows?

Both sides of the discussion in the WaPo comments section piss me off. I hate that I need to stick up for the Bush White House and say there’s nothing in the article indicating they were in the technological dark ages — after all, that was the most corrupt and inept White House in recent history. And I hate feeling like I have to correct all the liberals posting about how backwards this technology is, when it sounds like EVERY FREAKING GOV/CORP IT DEPARTMENT IN THE COUNTRY! Jesus Puppy Juggling Christ people, not everything has to be forced into your narrow black and white/red and blue world view.

And just to end this on the more comfortable note — making fun of the Republicans — one more from the WaPo comments (and trust me, there are far too many to choose from):

…amazement that there are not expresso machines in the staff room at what used to be a serious place of business rather than a video arcade. I worry less about technology for the staffies, and more about whether of not the RED phone still operated, and if the President has the “football” nearby and can enter the “beetledy-beeps” to keep America safe.

I bet Bush is thrilled to escape the fools and do-nothings that know how to manage the world, the nation, the Congress, the social security and banking industry, and the blackberry crop of iphone gameboys better than a Yale graduate with a security briefing from the intel of the world every morning.

I guess now we know who was in that 15% who still thought Bush was doing a good job. That guy.