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Garance Franke-Ruta

Garance Franke-Ruta - Garance Franke-Ruta is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where she oversees the Politics Channel.
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She was previously national web politics editor at The Washington Post, and has also worked at The American Prospect, The Washington City Paper, The New Republic and National Journal magazines. At The Prospect she won the 2007 Blog Hillman Prize awarded to its group blog, "Tapped."

In 2006, she was fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Mass., and in 2007, a summer fellow with The Iowa Independent, based in Des Moines, Iowa.

She has lectured at the Kennedy School, the Harvard Art Museums, Williams College, Wellesley College, and Brandeis and Georgetown Universities. She also has made numerous appearances on national and regional television and radio programs.

Born in the South of France, Garance grew up in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico; New York City, New York; and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has resided in Washington, D.C., since graduating from Harvard in 1997.

'I'm the President of the United States. You Think I've Got to Go Borrow Somebody's Computer?' (Video)

By Garance Franke-Ruta
Mar 31 2011, 12:45 PM ET Comment

Barack Obama talks technology during a Univision town hall on education and the Latino community, with amusing results

On March 28, President Obama sat down with Jorge Ramos of Univision for a town hall discussion on education and the Latino community. This clip from that forum, held at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington's Columbia Heights neighborhood, shows the president talking about having his own iPad and his own computer -- and provides a glimpse of that less commonly seen, at least these days, funny side of the oft stern-visaged commander-in-chief:

From David Jackson's report on the show:

Obama told Univision host Jorge Ramos that he has a BlackBerry, an iPad and his own computer -- and then joshed his host for expressing surprise at that latter possession.

"I mean, Jorge, I'm the president of the United States," Obama said to the laughter of the crowd at an education town hall broadcast by Univision. "You think I've got to go borrow somebody's computer? ... 'Hey, man, can I borrow your computer? ... How about you? You've got one?'"

Obama can often be seen checking his BlackBerry, which can be reached only by a select group of aides and close friends.

"I took my BlackBerry off for this show," Obama said, "because I didn't want it going off, and that would be really embarrassing. But usually I carry a BlackBerry around."



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