The Washington Post ran an interesting article this week about how aides to the Obama Administration ran into a lumbering bureaucracy of the government as they began to move in after Tuesday's inauguration ceremonies.

The article reported:

Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy yesterday, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software, and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.

For the most part, the article reads like a bunch of Mac users coping with a moving into a Windows shop. Even more interesting, however, is how readers comments actually advanced the story, while taking issue with how it was reported. Comments by IT managers and tech-savvy readers helped provide some context, such as pointing out that six-year-old software running laptops these days is fairly common, given that Windows XP is still widely used on many corporate PCs, including, it would appear, many in the U.S. Government.

One reader warned in a comment:

As soon as some major slip up occurs and a Gmail account is hacked, they'll learn ... the hard way.

This article is abusive to both the outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama administration. It shows a lack of critical thinking and awareness by the author, the copy editor, and the WP staff.

The other major point many of the comments made is this: before you get the government to buy all new Macs for the Mac-centric Obama-ites, consider Linux!

Open source has been finding more than a few converts in the U.S. Government. Could the White House be the next spot it lands? If the buzz around Windows 7 builds into solid upgrades when it ships this year, Linux may have to wait.