Now wasn't it George H.W. Bush that had the infamous scene in the super market where he looked totally befuddled by the bar code scanner at the check out?  So today I see this from Reuters about how George W. doesn't use email.  At one point he is quoted as saying, "But when it comes to e-mail, Bush said he avoids it because 'everything is investigated in Washington' and as a result 'we're losing a lot of history, not just with me, but with other presidents as well.'"  Huh?? 

Does the Freedom of Information Act only apply to email?  No -- it applies to a whole range of communication.  So what makes him think about email differently than other forms of communication? 

This raises a question for me: 

• Is email, because it is less understood by laypersons than writing on paper, seen as a significantly different form of documentation rather than just a maturation of writing media?  What happens when more communication technologies hit the market -- like blogs, vlogs, and wiki's?  How long will it take for these to me trusted forms of communication by people like the President?