I’ve got a piece in the Washington Post’s Outlook section today arguing that we need to have higher standards for our nation’s leaders when it comes to technology.
“As a nation, we wouldn’t tolerate such ignorance about any other area of policymaking. Would we be amused if it came out that Joe Biden, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wasn’t clear about the difference between Shiites and Sunnis or couldn’t find Sudan on a map? How about if Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate banking committee, wasn’t entirely sure what the term “subprime mortgage” meant? You can be sure that if Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on the Senate homeland security committee, fumbled over what a “dirty bomb” is, pundits and pols on both sides of the aisle would have her head. So why is it so funny that the octogenarian Stevens, the top Republican senator on the committee that regulates the Web, doesn’t know the difference between the Internet and an e-mail? (Some of this stuff is technical, but really now.)”
This argument, that there’s a gaping disconnect between the world today and our elected leaders, is a central tenet of my book. As I say in the Post today, “The 2008 presidential election is a chance to change that approach, but to do so, we must ensure that those seeking to lead actually do know what they think about the future.”
UPDATE: I did a chat on WashingtonPost.com about my op-ed on technology and political leaders today. Here’s my favorite geeky exchange:
Washington: Maybe one solution would be to force all the candidates to create World of Warcraft avatars and battle it out online for primary victories. Think of the money that would be saved, and it would be very telling to see what character each candidate chose. To add intellectual content, I suppose they could debate a health care question before launching any attack spell or attempting to cleave their opponent with a battle axe.
Garrett M. Graff: How do you propose doing that? Would each party organize a guild and battle each other (Dems. vs. GOP) or would candidates be able to gather their supporters for an attack on each other?
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