Questions, Questions

If there's one thing good government experts said over, and over, and over again during the election season, it was that the new administration would have to move quickly to get its nominees prepped, cleared, confirmed and in place. The unstated implication behind that, however, is that speed can't trade off with quality, something Obama himself said in his first press conference. And from the questionnaire for presidential appointees the New York Times obtained today, it's clear that Obama wants to make sure no nannies of questionable legality emerge at the last minute, that no drunken and disheveled Facebook photos will appear to grace the Drudge Report's landing page, that nobody's sordid past comes back to bite them, and especially not the new administration.

The question, however, is whether this thoroughness will conflict with the need to move quickly. Some of the questions, like those about professional licenses and real estate holdings are carry-overs from previous administrations. Others, like questions about online handles, pages on newer websites like MySpace or Facebook, or about potentially embarassing comments or blog posts, are simply reactions to new technology that has proliferated since the last presidential transition.

But some of the things the administration wants seem extremely hard to fulfill. They want every resume you've sent out over the past ten years, for example. In an era when most of us endlessly revise and update the same Word document, is that something that most of us are even capable of producing? And what happens if the Obama administration runs into a question that many or most applicants are unable to answer; will they be willing to say that the question maybe didn't work, or will they wait on folks to find a way to answer it?