Another Reason I Won't Run for President

Was there a more heartbreaking news story over the weekend than Jeff Zeleny's New York Times Sunday pieceon how Barack Obama will likely be forced to give up his BlackBerry as president? If there was one, I didn't read it. Sniff:

For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry. The device has rarely been far from his side - on most days, it was fastened to his belt - to provide a singular conduit to the outside world as the bubble around him grew tighter and tighter throughout his campaign.

"How about that?" Mr. Obama replied to a friend's congratulatory e-mail message on the night of his victory.

But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

Seriously, you know he's going to face huge, difficult economic and national security problems in addition to disasters yet unknown. But it's the small, simple stuff like losing your BlackBerry that brings home the reality that the presidency is a bizarre and lonely post. A guy can't even send e-mail without spawning a series of constitutional law symposiums.

There has to be a way to reconcile the need for transparancy, posterity and security with Obama's love of technology. The idea that he now has to scratch edicts across parchment with a feather pen, roll it up with a wax seal and send it off with a rider into the night is kind of strange. Like I say, it's a strange job. Being the leader of the free world means a lot less freedom for the leader.

But really, when will he have time to mess with his phone? It's not like he's going to be stuck waiting for coffee or to get his teeth cleaned or for his wife to try on 10 pairs of pants. He'll have plenty to do while saving the country from falling off a cliff and trying to live up to the insanely unrealistic expectations of his adoring supporters. There's no time for a few games of BrickBreaker.

And maybe it's a good thing that our president will be detached from the mind-numbing electronic chatter that inundates our lives. "I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot," Abraham Lincoln said in 1861. He did pretty well without a BlackBerry.