Being president is a time suck. Doesn’t matter if you’re the president of Bulgaria, Trader Joe’s, or the United States of America: it’s a hassle.
In a move to save the US president time and increase his efficiency, the White House is using a new (but secure) website that they say revolutionizes how this and future presidents will deal with the intelligence community. Staffers say that the beta rollout alone is cutting President Barack Obama’s time spent dealing with terrorist threats, kill orders, and the like by 20%.
Facebook is notoriously known for gutting users’ newsfeeds of content from their friends and relatives and inserting ads for nearby carwashes, farm implement manufacturers, or other businesses. White House staff are now using a similar algorithm to pick and choose which intelligence reports are displayed to the president based on his previous interests and demographic information. They say this has cut out a lot of “unnecessary claptrap” and allowed him to get to his basketball game 20 to 30 minutes earlier each day.
“Time he used to spend agonizing over drone attacks (which he always ultimately approved), he now spends shooting hoops or engaging in other healthful activities,” says Marcy Dugan, administrative administrational aide to the president.
Obama says, “I love that this gives me more time for the girls in the morning. Of course, at their ages, they’d rather die than spend time with me so I use the opportunity to play Brick Breaker or GTA: Vice City.”
To critics, aide Dugan says presidents have always received filtered intelligence messages. “No sitting president has ever known about every piece of data every day. To think otherwise is to think like a complete idiot. Just ask the late Lyndon Johnson.”
According to people familiar with the new intelligence system, the president hasn’t been bothered with an update from the Middle East in at least two months. “There’s always something happening there, but really nothing ever changes,” says one West Wing source. “How many presidents have given themselves ulcers hoping for some good news on the Palestine question? That’s not going to happen on my watch.”
While the president remains blissfully unaware on some issues, he can keep an eye on things that matter to him, without it going through the bureaucracy of the President’s Daily Briefing. “About half of his updates have something to do with Uzbekistan. We think it’s because he once clicked on a story about a swimsuit model from there.”
The United States National Transcontinental Chamber of Commerce has expressed great interest in this development. “We think that if the president is going to cut his intelligence briefings, perhaps that time could be filled more productively than with exercise or family time. Perhaps, like with Facebook, this time could be filled with ads, but live ads, presentations from business representatives who have or want to have contracts with the government.” The Chamber goes on to say that they think “the president owes it to the American people to pay greater attention to the needs of business.”
The former Facebook programmer who wrote the algorithm says it can be expanded to free up more of the president’s time. “I can make this thing cut his domestic policy briefings, too. Anything, really. From the environment to unemployment, I can make it so he doesn’t really have to be informed about anything that’s dull or annoying. Congress would be out of the picture entirely. This could be a great efficiency booster. Bush II would have loved this.”
Mortimer Fuckledunch, a Tea Party member and Republican from California, calls this a great development. “Normally, I hate every single thing Barack Hussein Obama has done, including being born. But this here’s a good idea. Anything to increase efficiency. And if they do the ads thing, to let businesses not be trampled on, even better. As long as the money stays in the private sector.”
The former Facebook programmer says his next assignment is to eliminate all presidential cogitation surrounding the upcoming White House Easter egg hunt.
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