I understand - I live here too!

The headline for this posting was inspired by the slogan in the Mercedes commercial “We understand – we live here too!” This slogan very concisely summarizes the point I would like to make about how Obama can trick people to believe in whatever they think he believes. In other words it is only necessary he to proclaim his good intentions and then nobody to look for results.

Recently Dries Buytaert, who is the creator of CMS Drupal, very enthusiastically wrote on his blog that he admires Obama for promoting Open Data by the fact that Obama’s administration built their recovery.gov site using Drupal. The most naïve conclusion by Dries is illustrated when he states that “We, the Drupal community, have a unique opportunity to help reshape how politics is done.”

Maybe I am exaggerating a little but this sound so similar to “We the people” – the first three words in the US Constitution. In other words Dries projects very unrealistic expectations towards the realm of politics and shows that he has to continue to educate himself about US politics. (I am not sure if he also decided to be post-national, citizen of the World like Obama, or if he sees himself like European of Belgian pedigree only.)

In the matter-of-fact USA Today reported that "Although President Obama has vowed that citizens will be able to track "'every dime' of the $787 billion stimulus bill, a government website dedicated to the spending won't have details on contracts and grants until October and may not be complete until next Spring.