January 27, 2009

Gazing into the crystal ball

By: AF Editors

Michael Goldfarb:

The Obama folks were very clever, but the value of the [campaign] website they created didn’t come from the superficial discussion of policy it offered — instead those policy statements become an unnecessary burden on a campaign that occasionally required flexibility.

For some reason, this model has now been adapted to the website of the White House. There has already been some quibbling with this or that section of the website, but the real problems will come in six months to a year when language gets changed, whole sections disappear, and events trump campaign rhetoric. The campaign is over — the thirty-word policy prescriptions should have died with it.