Dan Gillmor makes a nice counter-intuitive point in his San Jose Mercury News column today. Jumping off the hyperventilation all over the Internet about the “bulge” in Bush’s jacket during the first debate with Kerry, he argues that at some point, we ought to come to terms with the fact that information technology is becoming pervasive, and maybe politicians should be allowed to take more of an “open book” test when they go before the public. After all, we want the President to excel as information synthesizer, not a memorizer. He’s got a huge staff at his disposal. As Gillmor writes, “In the Information Age, the ability to find relevant information quickly and use it intuitively will be at least as important as the ability to memorize numbers or slogans.”
Picture a debate where all the candidates are allowed to use wired laptops, and their staffs are plugged in by IM. Or, as Gillmor suggests, imagine an interview setting where a reporter can fact-check what a politician says on the spot, or a TV network flashing corrections on the screen as the interview is underway.