Team Obama rolled into the White House ready to be the first wired administration. But they found themselves in White House circa 1975, before e-mail, blogs and -- of course -- Twitter. Salon's Mike Madden has the story.
Madden: "Which is why, now that they've moved into the West Wing, Obama's aides are starting to feel as if they've stumbled into a time warp and are actually working for the Carter administration, technology-wise. The White House e-mail system was down for most of Monday, leaving the press office out of touch with the world except through an overloaded phone system (complete with a full voice-mail box) -- for at least the second prolonged stretch since Inauguration Day. The new blog on Whitehouse.gov, which is supposed to be at the forefront of the Obama administration's new openness and transparency, still lags a day or two behind reality, in part because of trouble sending transcripts and messages around among the West Wing staff. (One of the few posts that have been published is essentially an apology for the slow start.) Memos Obama issued Monday morning were copied and distributed on paper in the White House press office, instead of being e-mailed out to far-flung reporters. Aides are privately grumbling about not having laptops, about delayed BlackBerry service and about the phones not working."
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