Obama Doesn't Think Much of the iPad

President Obama's cachet among the gadget-loving crowd took a hit over the weekend when he told an audience that not only doesn't he know how the iPod and the iPad work, but that he thinks they're little more than a distraction. We in the media have been hearing (and in some cases, writing) that the iPad will be a transformative device that will change the way we work, live and even think, but President Obama will have none of it.

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation."

As one commentator put it, the President is starting to sound more like a grumpy old fogey rather than the cagey campaigner who famously used social media and all related PDA gadgetry to his advantage back in 2008. So when did he all of a sudden forget how to use his iPod?