Bloggers And Facebookers Need Not Apply

In a sign of the times, not only does Obama want the standard deep background info on potential applicants, he also wants to check out Facebook pages and wants to know what name you've used to post comments on various sites. Oh, and have you ever sent any email that might embarrasses the president-elect? Lets see, even if we are using Kwame Kilpatrick text messages as the barometer I'm pretty much fucked.

I'm not ranting about this because, well, they're right. But it will be interesting to see how this plays out, especially since I'm guessing that many of his third-tier and fourth-tier staffers will be of the Facebook generation (is that a term yet? if it isn't please lets not start using it).

Which is worse, having an uncle who worked at Freddie Mac or a wife who lobbies for investment banks or posting "nice tits" next to a friend's Facebook beach photo? We live in a world with little privacy left and yet rather than hold on to what we've got, many of us (sigh, me included) have decided to go the other way and put it all out there for the world to see. We think only our 500 "friends" see it, but there anyone who believes that may want to head downtown and inquire about the sale of that bridge to Brooklyn. Yeah, I'm showing my age with that one.

The kids in high school and college now may be the ones in for some hard lessons about their "openness" down the road. On the other hand, maybe not. Maybe in our post-whatever world, none of this will ultimately matter and life will one big Ally McBeal episode (I cite that show because of the coed bathrooms and to remind everyone yet again of my dated references)

As for me, hell whatever I do next in life hopefully won't be impacted by anything I've scribbled here. I think if I have a kid though, I'm keeping him off the grid as much as possible.