Dear Mr President: Please Read Your Blogs -- (It's Not Like Eating Your Spinach)

Dear Mr. President:

Early in his Presidency, George Bush was widely ridiculed for saying that he didn't read newspapers. Yesterday you told the New York Times that you and your staff don't pay much attention to blogs. With the greatest respect, this seems likely a strangely off-key remark from a tech-savvy President who shrewdly used the blogosphere to overcome Hillary Clinton's fame and money in the early caucuses and primaries; whose primary and general election campaign was driven in part by the internet where you generated popular support and raised hundreds of millions of dollars; who looks to Google CEO Eric Schmidt for economic advice; who gives a weekly address to the nation on the Internet; and who insisted on keeping his Blackberry in order to prevent being isolated in the White House bubble.

Surely you know, Mr. President, that blogs range from gossip about the Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana (perhaps useful in dinner conversation with your daughters) to analysis by leading economists on the fiscal crisis (useful perhaps in considering a range of policy views for dealing with insolvent banks). At a time when major newspapers are cutting back, closing down, or converting to the internet (just last week Denver's Rocky Mountain News went out of business and Seattle's Post Intelligencer announced it may be converting to an online-only publication) the blogosphere is becoming an increasing central place to get both news and opinion. In 2009, saying you don't pay much attention to blogs is as if Woodrow Wilson had said he didn't pay much attention to radio or Dwight Eisenhower had said he didn't pay much attention to television.

Moreover, Mr. President, your dismissive statement about blogs in the New York Times seemed oddly tied to the issue of bank nationalization.

"Part of the reason we don't spend a lot of time looking at blogs," you said, "is because if you haven't looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there's a clean answer one way or another--well you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they'll be fine."

With all due respect, it's hard to tease out what you're driving at with this statement. Is it people who advocate bank nationalization whom you "don't spend a lot of time looking at"? Or is it just people who advocate bank nationalization in blogs, as opposed to in other formats?

To take one example, Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman has advocated temporarily nationalizing a few of the largest banks (no, not "all the banks") in his twice-weekly New York Times column. He has amplified on this view in his daily blog which the New York Times now uses to extend its Op Ed pages beyond the print edition. So in which format are you uninterested in "spending a lot of time" considering Prof. Krugman's views on the banking crisis--the printed Op Ed format or the online blog format?

It would be really surprising, and a bit disturbing, if a President who has said he wants to hear the widest range of opinions on important issues before coming to his own conclusions on key policy decisions, would want to dismiss out of hand the wide range of serious economic thinkers who have come to advocate partial, temporary bank nationalization, whether their opinions come in the form of blogs or other formats.

It's likely that some very smart people, like Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, are providing you with compelling policy arguments why bank nationalization would be a mistake and its better for the federal government to keep all the banks private while making available new capital injections and trying to isolate their toxic assets in a "bad bank." But there are also some very smart people outside your administration who disagree after giving this serious thought. In addition to Paul Krugman, these people include Joseph Stiglitz, Nouriel Roubini, and even James Baker and Alan Greenspan.

One would hope that to avoid being isolated in the White House bubble, you would want to hear the views of these kinds of people--many of whom you know personally and some of whom were campaign supporters and advisors--and not to have all economic opinion filtered through Messrs. Geithner and Summers, whether these views come in the form of blogs, print articles, or from picking up the phone and calling some of these people or inviting them over for coffee. Or better yet, invite Stiglitz, Krugman, and Roubini to join you, Geithner and Summers (along with a bipartisan group of key Congresspeople like Graham, McCain, Schumer, Dodd and Frank) for a full and frank evening of discussion and debate among the nation's smartest economic minds about how to best solve the banking crisis.

It's not just the issue of the banking crisis about which you would find that serious thinking and analysis is occurring, among other places, in the blogosphere. In this Internet Age, blogs are bringing important information and carrying out serious debate about the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the mortgage crisis, constitutional rights, political strategy for Democrats, and a host of other issues about which you must make decisions every day.

Mr. President: You're an extremely busy man with very limited time to read. But surely your staff prepares daily selections and summaries of news and opinion to go in your "to-read" folder. I also understand that they show you a daily sampling of letters to the President from ordinary citizens. May I respectfully suggest that in this Internet Age, you ask them to include a sampling of the more interesting, thoughtful and provocative blogs among your regular reading material. I think you will find that it could help prevent you from becoming isolated in the White House bubble. You might even enjoy it.

Comments

[DallasMike]

Who do you think you are?
Obams is to wrapped up in his own importance to answer any of the little people.

[BeeOplentee]

Really now, each one of us reading and writing blogs are wasting time; stealing from our employers or from things that should be done with the family or around the house. If Obama admitted to reading blogs, he'd be admitting to goofing off. We're not paying him for that. Let some $6.00/hr clerk or intern scan the blogs for anything that might catch the eye.

BTW, it was "professional" (read: professorial) economists who practiced their dismal soothsaying and got us into this mess in the first place. Why would *anyone* want to listen to their rubbish again?!

[PJay1]

Excellent points made excellently, Mr. Mogulescu.

I join you in your plea for the admin to heed, or at the very least, to read!

[skymuffin]

Riiiiiight. And they don't pay attention to polls. Uh huh.

[Athena123]

On the one hand, there is a lot of bogus information out there. It takes time to sift through the riff and the raff. However, I find that the time is well worth it. Perhaps a compromise - Obama could hire a trusted "blog czar" to sift through the blogosphere and show him the best ones. For example, the Huffington Post is a good one for Obama to read. There's many intelligent articles written by people in the national and international spotlight. In addition, I think people like the idea that they can communicate directly with their president through blogs. People want to feel heard. That was one of the strengths of Obama - he seems to "get it". Hope he doesn't lose touch now that he's president.

[jcwtts1]

With all due respect, it's hard to tease out what you're driving at with this statement. Is it people who advocate bank nationalization whom you "don't spend a lot of time looking at"? Or is it just people who advocate bank nationalization in blogs, as opposed to in other formats?

Let me tease it out for you, President Obama is saying that all blog posts aren't thoughtful. Some are, some aren't. But the comments underneath range from brilliant to idiotic. I think that Obama has a group sufficiently diverse to avoid group think. I think that ideas from Blogs that are revolutionary enter the mainstream consciousness and become a meme. The point President Obama was making was, yeah, we've thought of nationalizing the banks but it isn't that simple. Yeah we've thought of letting them vanish, but it isn't that simple. I've read 20 blogs about nationalizing the banks or letting them die. Why does P Obama need to read them too. They basically said the same thing. Some Bloggers will become must reads but not all of them. P Obama doesn't read all the NYT columnists he reads Rich and O'Dowd and Friedman because they are opinion makers. Raise your stature and Obama will read you.

[lizr]

I think he just said that for effect. I dont believe it for a moment.

he may not read them himself but I'd put money on it that reading them is part of somebody (or a group of somebodys) job descriptions.

[Changeizgood]

I believe he and the staff are utilizing the WhiteHouse.gov site and they respond. If you want to give a little advice, Mr. Krugman or whomever, why don't you do like the rest of the country does and send the team a letter. They go over them and yes, they do have bloggers, "the American People" that want to tell the President anything that needs to be addressed.

I'm sure if Krugman suggested, or requested a meeting, President Obama would listen. He said "If anybody else has any ideas, he's open to them."

Meaning, "don't come with the BS, just bring a solutions. We don't have time for the rhetoric.

[Blivet]

By and large bloggers have vastly elevated opinions of their own ideas but tend to dismiss anyone in disagreement with them. While an occasional gold nugget may be found buried in the slag, for the most part, reading blogs is not a productive use of one's time. That's why I agree with President Obama. However, I think it might be a good idea to have staff members monitoring them for the rare good idea that shows up. Doing it himself would be a colossal waste of his valuable time.

[kcmookie]

I could not have stated it better.

[NotMcCain]

You're right.

He worries about being isolated but contact with friends and political appointees can still be isolating.

Cable news isn't worth listening to since it's just 24/7 Republican talking points.


But liberal blogs could give him some good (and different) ideas.

I hope he listens.

[december30]

Mr. President is toooo busy right now to read his blogs. I am sure he will do so just as soon as he can see daylight into the economy. Remember, it the economy for "Main Street" america that has him tight to the wire. We should continue to support him and keep him in our prayers. He is the only President, in my lifetime who really cares about Main Street america.

[Lemeritus]

Interesting... I was reflecting the other day that Obama may be the only president in many lifetimes who actually comes from Main Street America.

[eilish]

All during the campaign I received emails from the Obama camp asking for my opinion on issues to which I always replied. Obama has to stick with what was successful for keeping in touch with his base - and blogs are it.

[bellfly70]

You are absolutely right miles
President Obama should read some of these blogs. Espeacially some of the ones that are posted here on the Huffington post. He would find some to be very comforting and enlightening. Of course not all but a good portion of them are sincere comments written by average american citizens that want our president to make an honest attempt to work deligently on the problems facing this country like; unemployme­nt,economi­c issues, energy and health care reform issues in this country .Finally, he would find that there are many of us here in these great United States of America who would definetely love to see him succeed in order that we may be a stronger than we have been before!

[munki]

S. O. S.

HELP!

We need to fix Corporate America and paper CEOs...

[littlepuffycloud]

Again, President Obama is in a catch-22. If he said he reads blogs, people would complain he's wasting time and when he says he doesn't read blogs, people complain he should. No matter what he does or says, someone is going to complain.

[Actionman]

yeah, and you need to know it's ok as long as the work he has to do is not impeded by those complaining just to complain.

Keeping the focus on what NEEDS to be done.

[Char59]

Perhaps if the President said he reads blogs, then they would say he is too busy reading blogs instead of running the country. So I just guess they will never be satisfied no matter what the President does.