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?"

Comments

Question: "What will you do to establish transparency and safeguards against waste with the rest of the Wall Street bailout money?" I would also like to know where the first part went. By the looks of the economy, the Wall Street Bailout appears to be a gargantuan waste already. Common sense dictates that other measures can be taken to rescue our economy......like stopping the things that put us in this condition in the first place! The outsourcing of manufacturing jobs would be a smart 1st step. Followed by forceful trade renegotiations that demands a massive reduction in the unfair trade deficits and if our partners didnt agree, then we should put up stiff tarrifs to protect what little is left of our economy. Anybody guess what should come next? Yes that's right, repatriation of all illegal foriegn nations and the confiscation of their ill gotten gains. We confiscate other criminals assets.....it seems only PC to do the same to these criminals. To save room for other posts I will suggest one last thing.......to tax and / or heavily regulate the billions of dollars that are sent abroad at the expense of US taxpayers. They get free education and health care ect. ect.......yet still manage to send 50 billion plus out of the Country every year? Not if I was a half black and half white President!

Obama will make big money what kind of money god only knows.

The Mexican mafia & their advocates like SEIU have decreed marijuana untaxable and off limits-even with thousands of "medical" pot clinics all over tax happy CA.