Barack Obama and the Whitehouse’s new blog

by Adam Killam on January 20, 2009

Barack Obama became the United States’ 44th President today. At exactly 12:01 PM, which according to the U.S constitution is when the incoming President elect becomes President, the Whitehouse launched a new blog.

“Welcome to the new WhiteHouse.gov. I’m Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House and one of the people who will be contributing to the blog.” stated the first post.

“The New Whitehouse.gov” as they’re calling it will focus on communication, transparency, and participation.

Obama’s use of Twitter, Facebook and Salesforce.com Ideas has already proven his team’s ability to take advantage of the social web to reach out and gain support from and communicate with the people. The addition of the new blog to Whitehouse.gov is another great step in the right direction for the new President.

Congrats Obama. We’re all watching!

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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Dave Saunders 01.20.09 at 1:20 pm

Good information. I read through the Constitution because I wasn’t really sure about this…

Under Article II, it states that before “he” takes office, the oath must be taken.

Under Amendment 20, it states that the term of office ends at noon, Jan 20.

It however does not explicitly state that the new office begins at noon.

While it really doesn’t matter, I think that given the Article II requirement of an oath to be taken, it may be that for 1-2 minutes, we did not have a President today. :)

2 Adam Killam 01.20.09 at 1:50 pm

Hi Dave,

Thanks for setting me straight!
I will take that as a lesson – don’t blindly trust everything you read/see on T.V!

Adam