THE AGE.COM.AU: IF THE Obama campaign represented a sleek, new iPhone kind of future, the first day of the Obama Administration looked more like the rotary-dial past.
Two years after launching the most technologically savvy campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software and security regulations forbidding outside email accounts.
"It is like going from an Xbox to an Atari," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs.
In many ways, the move into the White House resembled a first day at school. Advisers wandered the halls, looking for their offices. Aides spent hours in orientation, learning government ethics rules as well as how their payslips would be delivered.
Everyone filled out a seemingly endless pile of paperwork. >>> Anne Kornblut and Anne Davies, Washington | Friday, January 23, 2009
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – Australia) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback – Australia) >>>
