Obama to Hold Google+ ‘Hangout’ After State of the Union | Hacker News Reader

Obama to Hold Google+ ‘Hangout’ After State of the Union

techland.time.com

99 pointsmcknz27 comments

Not that I'll get my way, but I think we should bring back the days when they didn't pre-screen interview questions.

The Nixon/Frost interview is still my favorite of all, I found it more telling about the President than any interview with any political candidate since then.

Those days didn't really ever exist, though. Nixon/Frost was a pretty much unique event.

And even then, Frost/Nixon took place 2.5 years after Nixon had already resigned the Presidency.

That's when Nixon only had the Secret Service making sure he didn't get shot, he didn't have officials making sure questions weren't asked that could breach national security, etc.

It probably also functions as a powerful disincentive to ever do it again.

From the linked article:

  “…the President will be fielding questions (pre-selected, of course) from average Joes…”

Note that they say they'll be pre-selected.

"And which of course will be answered ahead of time."

Debates used to be run by the League of Women Voters. Questions had more substance, and substance is the enemy of the modern candidate.

I personally prefer them having the opportunity to think before answering and making sure they don't accidentally offend someone.

I do agree that it would be nice to see how they handle questions on their feet but too often a slip of words or someone too willing to read into things result in scandals out of nothing.

Are the MTV Town Hall questions screened? I remember Bill Clinton being asked "boxers or briefs?" (Bill answered, "Usually briefs.")

That seems like a typical softball question.

Sorry but as soon as I see "prescreened" I think "censorship" and "avoiding criticism". What a bore that will be. That's my problem with politics, with republicans and democrats, everything is so sugar coated. They always have answers to easy questions. I want to see how someone responds when asked difficult questions. That's when you find out who they really are.

I also think it mostly means the president won't see anybody's penis.

Maybe this is just an indicator of my unfitness to ever be POTUS, but I think that after the stress of having to deliver a State of the Union address with an economy like ours in an election year, seeing some random dude's flop-o-matic 9000 pop up on screen would the sort of utterly absurd thing I'd appreciate.

I wonder what the going rate is to buy the President's time.

how's it any different than taking questions via twitter, doing a community roundtable at linkedin, or meeting with employees et al. at facebook?

The 10 user limit, and equality of the speakers, for example.

Hangouts are embedded in G+ posts. People can comment as long as they don't turn comments off.

So, for what demographics does this publicity stunt improve the perceived legitimacy of Google+? I can't think of any negatives.

I presume Google+ is going after this key demo: your mom.

Google+ has already caught on in the techy/engineery crowd (still not to the extent of Facebook, of course, but Google can probably afford to let this grow slowly), but while now Twitter and Facebook are household terms, "Google Plus" probably is still unknown to many regular folks. These kinds of publicity stunts are entirely aimed at changing that.

I think it's a smart move, and honestly, it's nice to see someone promote their service by holding chats with the POTUS rather than a Kardashian or something.

After meaning almost a week later, not later Tuesday evening.

Of course the questions are going to be pre-screened. It'll be a representative sample of the issues that will generally determine the election for the undecided and independent voter. If you're a big NORML supporter and want him to talk about pot, make it a national issue. If your issue won't swing an election, then he won't talk about it.

Also note the infographic/slide-enhanced version of the SotU which will stream live, Tue, Jan 24th, 9pm EST: http://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2012

Next month, ChatRoulette!

Quite shameful to see Google so aggressively shove a subpar product and experience.

I don't really have any experience with hangout so could you please provide comments as to why it is a subpar product? So far I've heard positive comments about it.

Twitter was a very subpar experience in 2008 when Obama started using it, too.

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