Daily Digest: Obama Looking Eager to Open 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers. We'll back with your daily dose of digest on Friday, likely ten pounds heavier. Enjoy the holiday. Gobble gobble.

• Letting Us in to the White House: The time has come, argues Nieman Watchdog Project's Dan Froomkin, for President-elect Barack Obama to embrace a "wiki White House" with both arms. Offering a stark break from the opacity of the Bush-Cheney Administration will, writes Froomkin, "offer a vastly better way for the American people to relate to their government -- and maybe even learn to trust it again." It's already begun. Our Micah Sifry reports that the transition hub Change.gov has launched a groundbreaking threaded discussion session around health care, using a full-featured tool called IntenseDebate. This, says Micah, "is huge." This turbo-charged blog comments system "is a terrific start on fulfilling Obama's promise to make government more open and participatory."

• Conventional Wisdom Turns Against CEOs as CTO: Obama promised to inaugurate the position of U.S. CTO, but, the question has been since November 4th, who, exactly? Or, more importantly, what kind of candidate? Early chatter focused on Silicon Valley executives like Google CEO Eric Schmidt or Amazon head Jeff Bezos -- mostly, perhaps, because those are the bold-faced names regularly found on the cover of Fast Company magazine. GovTech's Steve Towns profiles two alternative types of candidates, those with experience toiling away in government, far from foosball tables and free catered meals. Vint Cerf, while now Google's chief evangelist, has put in time working with the Defense Department and other agencies. And DC CTO Vivek Kundra has recently won praise for his innovative Apps for Democracy contest.

• Busting Out of the "Finest Prison in the World": Obama seems unwilling to let go of his trusty Blackberry -- or the communications tendrils out into the real world it represents -- without a fight, Taegen Goddard reports. Obama told Barbara Walters that he's "in the process of negotiating with the Secret Service, with lawyers, with White House staff" about how he'll communicate once ensconced in the Oval Office. Here's hoping Obama doesn't clamp down on communication channels unless hard cold fact (and not just presidential tradition) makes it absolutely necessary.

• Building the Post-Obama Movement: The Obama campaign(?) has announced a plan to hold campaign-style house meetings on December 13th and 14th. Under the banner of "Change is Coming," the self-organized meetings aim to allow supporters "to reflect on this monumental journey and plan on how they can bring change to both Washington and their own communities." The continuing trickle of interest in turning the Obama campaign into a movement seems to be coming out of Chicago is intriguing. That said, the lack of transparency about the process suggests that some players in the process are still scrambling behind closed doors to figure out what's next.

• NASA's Filling CIO Position at the Speed of Light: NASA recently posted a job listing for a rather important job at the tech-based agency: CIO, responsible for "leading and managing all information technology strategies and initiatives" at the agency. (Thanks Andrew Hoppin) Strange thing is, the open period for the spot is from November 20th to December 4th. That's just 10 working days -- and over the Thanksgiving holiday. Unless they have a candidate lined up, it's a remarkably quick sprint to filling such a significant post.

• How Did Times Readers Do in Their Cabinet Bets?: The New York Times' recently asked readers to guess who Obama would chose to fill his cabinet. It's showing them to be notably bad prognosticators. Though readers rightly had Robert Gates at Defense Secretary, those who played along with the interactive cabinet picker had Bill Richardson for the State Department job that went to Hillary Clinton, Janet Napolitano instead of Eric Holder at Attorney General, and Paul Volcker in the Treasury Secretary slot filled by Timothy Geithner -- whose fourth place showing in the readers' choices was behind Texas Representative Ron Paul.

• A Look Back at How the Political Press Handled Tech: The Columbia Journalism Review's Jane Kim does a useful post mortem on how media made use of technology throughout the course of Election '08, from the Los Angeles Times' clarifying interactive graphics about Proposition 8 to CNN's notorious "holographic correspondents." Kim's advice to the press? "Don't fetishize technology."

• Truly Critical Federal Blogging: The Transportation Security Administration's Evolution of Security blog has a timely Thanksgiving-themed post that answers the mission one of America's most pressing questions: "Can I take my pie with me on the plane?" 'Nuf said.

In Case You Missed It...

Matthew Burton is thrilled that Bobby Jindal is on Twitter, saying that the Louisiana governor's tweeting is active and substantive. Most importantly, writes Matt, "It's HIM! Or at least, it feels like it's him, and that's what matters." Great to see the GOP comer on Twitter, but he's going to have to go a bit beyond tweets like "PGA commits to tournament in New Orleans" before he gets a follow.