The FCC has announced plans to test a new addition to the "Emergency Alert System" in which the president will be able to interrupt all communications and speak to the American public directly in the event of a national emergency which doesn't occur during a vacation, round of golf, or pickup game of basketball.
Of course, this begs the question of exactly what kind of live message we could expect to hear from the alleged president if the feces hits the fan. If a nuke takes out an American city or two, will Mr. Obama hurriedly remind us not to "jump to conclusions" about who to blame? If passenger jets are again used as suicide weapons, will the president seize the airwaves to assure us that "we can absorb a terrorist attack" and that 9/11 made us "stronger" (as well as opening up cheap real estate for Islamic community centers)?
Of course, under extreme pressure it might not really be a great idea to give Mr. Teleprompter a live microphone for unscripted comments. America will not take much comfort from the president's assurance that "all 57 states are safe," jokes about bowling and the Special Olympics, accusations that the Cambridge Police may have again acted stupidly, his confusion about the pronunciation of the words "corps" and "corpse," or a lofty and long-winded lecture on the virtues of quick and abject surrender.
In all seriousness (perhaps even dead seriousness), it's frightening to think that in the event of a truly catastrophic national emergency, systems are being put into place to kill Americans' access to Internet news sources...but make sure that we can instantly get the president's version of events.
Because the only thing we can imagine that would make such a catastrophic day worse is Barack Hussein Obama's assurance that he's in complete control.
shutting down the INTERNET? isnt' that what Mubarack did that everyone thought was soooo terrible?
if it's YOUR chosen dictator, it's ok??
