Excellent read. Full of information, with lots of insightful details. The Economist never disappoints, it's an awesome publication.
The fact that it publishes the content of its print edition online, one day BEFORE the print edition is delivered, and it has still been able to massively increase its subscriber numbers (doubled in the past 3 years), just shows to prove that even in this age of Internet, when everyone else in the newspaper industry is complaining about falling revenues, good journalism has its place, and will always be valued.
Very insightful argument. What is more and more pronounced everyday is the opportunity that Obama has to follow on FDR's footpath. FDR did exactly what you describe, getting around the reporting of his policies by newspapers, by his weekly radio broadcasts. Obama is reading a lot about former presidential transitions, he said on 60 minutes that he's reading a book on FDR's first 100 days in office, and I'm sure this wouldn't escape him.
A New Yorker reporter described the challenge of converting his huge online following during the campaign to be part of his government, to converting a population that had been mobilized for warfare to going back to civil industrial activity. It's not gonna be easy, and I think many people especially the youth who were part of the campaign and were energized and motivated by his campaign will switch off from politics again, simply because governing is more tedious and boring that campaigning.
But we don't know that yet, and this remains one of Obama's biggest challenges, how to keep people, and especially youngsters, engaged with him. That will be the major challenge of kicking the government, any government, into the 21st century, making it more open and transparent and eventually, more 'democratic'.
One way to make your old car run better is to look up the price of a new model.