Obama releases "answers" to change.gov user-generated "questions" (420, dude)

Barack Obama's change dot gov recently asked the citizens to submit questions which he would deign to answer. Now, the answers to the "top" questions have been released here.

The questions were weak, the answers were weak and could have been gleaned from Obama's positions. All that was predictable; see the discussion of popular voting systems.

First, my question - tougher than any of the others I saw - got 17 up votes versus 13 down votes. Since the question is fact-based, one wonders why 13 people didn't think Obama should have been asked it.

Reading these questions is making me weep for our Idiocracy. This is the most popular question:

"Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?"

The answer:

President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.

I'm going to leave the research to you the reader, but typing a few common-sense search queries would have quickly revealed Obama's position, albeit a bit "nuanced" ("decriminalization" vs. "legalization") and possibly involving a minor flip-flop. Why couldn't the person who asked the question have done that first? How could the stoned hippie that asked the question know how to find the form to submit a question but not know how to use Google? Why would anyone vote for such a stupid question that Obama had already basically answered?

Another "top" question was:

What will you do to establish transparency and safeguards against waste with the rest of the Wall Street bailout money?

You the reader can probably answer that in your sleep, and you don't even work for the Obama administration:

President-elect Barack Obama does not believe an economic crisis is an excuse for wasteful and unnecessary spending. As our economic teams works with congressional leadership to put together a plan, we will put in place reforms to ensure that your money in invested well. We will also bring Americans back into government by amending executive orders to ensure that communications about regulatory policymaking between persons outside government and all White House staff are disclosed to the public. In addition all appointees who lead the executive branch departments and rulemaking agencies will be required to conduct the significant business of the agency in public so that every citizen can see in person or watch on the Internet these debates.

What did anyone expect him to say? "I'm going to blow it on American Dad Bendables?"

Mon, 12/15/2008 - 23:02 · · Importance: 6