President-elect Obama's First Saturday Radio/YouTube Address

I'm not sure if it's me getting older and recognizing these things now or if this is just how information is spread in this internet era, but I didn't know there was an opposition radio response. I knew every Saturday, there was a presidential radio address. I didn't know the other side had one. I figure as many people heed it as those who listen to the opposition State of the Union address. Actually, less than that. Who listens to the radio?

That's why this is sort of important. There are many who have said that President-elect Obama must work the same way President Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression in the face of our economic crisis. Obama lacks the experience FDR did before reaching office. Obama got into the Senate and immediately started running for president. FDR was at least governor of New York.

Still, both of these men know how to reach the people. FDR started his fireside chats over the radio as governor and continued them through his presidency. FDR was the president who garnered the radio age. In the same vein, I remember subscribing to then Sen. Obama's podcasts early on. Now the presidential radio addresses will be over YouTube.

For once, I'm actually going to be looking out for the president's radio addresses because they aren't radio addresses. Radio has been a dying form for some time. Even it's successor is seeing a rather rocky life. Television has certainly thrived but the 24-hour news cycle has fed and, in a way, killed American politics. It will be interesting to see how the internet will continue to change this nation and how the Obama administration will progressively harness it to inform and involve the American public.