Web Check Means No Job At The White House For MeWeb Check Means No Job At The White House For Me

Less than two weeks into U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's transition toward the presidency, it has become clear I'm unlikely to get a job with the next administration.Aside from the fact that several men in my immediate family own guns for hunting (and are highly unlikely to give me detailed registration information that the next White House requests of job applicants), I'm afraid that I may have taken a little jab or two at the Obama camp in a blog.

I could explain that it was an attempt at even-handed coverage of the campaign, but it's not exactly a selling point that would make someone eager to hear my explanation -- let alone put me on their government payroll.

I'm not sure how I would do in terms of the new White House requirement to divulge all social networking site profiles and URLs. Just finding all the URLs would be a daunting task after more than 16 years in the news business.

I would probably score points in the no-embarrassing-drunken-photos-category, but I may be too anti-social when it comes to social networking. That's because I've been pretty careful not to divulge my whole inner-life, or outer-life, online. I write about this stuff, so I know what can happen to job candidates when potential employers find half-dressed and/or half-drunken pictures of them all over MySpace. For that reason -- and, of course, because I never do anything embarrassing -- you won't find any compromising images of me.

Another reason I've been careful is that I value my privacy and a bit of anonymity. So I have guarded my personal information against strangers, advertisers, would-be stalkers, and bored Web surfers who may remember me from summer camp or elementary school but have nothing in common with me today.

Don't get me wrong. There are people I wouldn't mind reconnecting with. I'd just rather it happen in a more organic way that doesn't allow any stranger with a slight interest in me to use Google and uncover every detail of my life. Call me old-fashioned, but I like boundaries. I like controlling the flow of information about me, at least enough so the clerk who rings me up at the supermarket can't, on a whim, find out my age, profession, address, and where I'm employed.

Then there's the problem of all the "aliases and handles you've used to communicate on the Internet." My company alone has created so many accounts with various permutations of my name that I sometimes have to call IT because I can't remember them. And, before Windows, I made some frustrating attempts at getting online and I have no recollection whatsoever of the username I had back then.

Also, I'm not egotistical enough to think that every article I have published (when producing one to five stories a day, since 1992) was worth saving. So I could never meet the requirement to turn them all over. Never mind the requirement to turn over every comment I've ever posted online. Though I'm not particularly active on social networking sites or discussion boards, I'm sure I couldn't remember them all and dig up each one if I tried. There's just too much that's happened in my full, yet still somewhat private, life.

Finally, I would pass muster on the question about whether I've had any affiliation with AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or Washington Mutual. Too bad they didn't ask about my college tuition lender. As one of many Americans saddled with a debt not based on excessive credit card use, an unaffordable home, or vacations taken on home equity lines of credit, I'd like to give an them an earful about the one form of debt that isn't being addressed.