So Obama doesn't tweet; what's the problem?

Apparently Barack Obama isn't the twit people like to think he is.

He's one of the most popular users of the microblogging Twitter service, with 2.6 million followers on his account, but whoever sends out those tweets under his name, it's not him.

Obama has his name on one Twitter account, @BarackObama, which is run by Organizing for America, his political arm which is now operated out of the Democratic National Committee. The other account is @WhiteHouse, which was first set up to send out news about H1N1. @BarackObama has 2,678,464 followers and @WhiteHouse has 1,455,965 followers.

"My thumbs are too clumsy to type things in on the phone," he told students at Shanghai. I can relate to that. I'm of an older generation, one which uses fingers (all of them) to type.

This shouldn't be that much of a surprise. Presidents don't write their own speeches; they have a stable of writers to do that work. Staff handles communications for the president, and probably from your local congressman. That lovely note you got from your senator probably flowed from the pen of an anonymous staffer. So there's no scandal there.

Actually, I'd rather the President spend his time doing his job than waste it on social media. Well, considering it's Obama, let me rephrase that. Let's give him a plug-in keyboard big enough to type on, and he can Twitter all day long.

What's interesting is that the tech-savvy Obama, who is never without his Blackberry (crackberry?) admitted he'd never Twittered. At all. Again, so?

Still, there's disillusionment, particularly among the Chinese students in the audience. Their country has seen a crackdown in social media use, including Twitter.

You might as well blast Santa Claus out of the sky by a heat-seeking missile. Splatter the Easter Bunny all over the road with an SUV.

From TechCrunch:

... this is interesting considering the Internet, and social media in particular, was considered a large part of his ascension to the Presidency. Obviously, he had a killer team around him that was able to embrace the web without the then-Senator getting too much involved. Still, it’s somewhat surprising that he never sent any of his own tweets during the primaries. And undoubtedly part of us wants to believe that when you see tweets like “This is history,” which was sent on November 7 — or “Humbled” after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, that’s it could the President really sending it. Nope ...

OK, so who's sending out those tweets? Rahm Emmanuel?

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(Photo: Barack Obama checks his Crackberry during a campaign swing last year. He uses this device for everything except tweeting.)