Multiple stories over the weekend (including this one: Lose the BlackBerry? Yes He Can, Maybe from the New York Times) are suggesting that President-elect Barack Obama will have to give up his Blackberry once he takes office:

But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas.

But BusinessWeek’s Steve Wildstrom argues that the real issue here is not the technological, security, or legal implications that have been raised. Those can all be handled:

Yes, anything the President taps out on his BlackBerry is subject to the Presidential Records Act and could become public. So is everything the President scribbles on odd bits of paper. Presidents have to be really careful about what they send in emails, handwritten notes, or diplomatic demarches. Again, it’s all about discipline, not technology.

Obama showed that he has incredible discipline in running what many are calling the best campaign in recent history, and he did it all using an array of technology tools.

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter agrees, and argues that access to technology gives the president a much-needed way to ward off the “splendid isolation” of the presidency that often ends up putting our leaders so far out of touch:

It lets him access the outside world on his own terms. And you can bet that the people in the president’s email address book would contact him only sparingly. They know his time is valuable.

The Blackberry decision is symbolic of so many calls Obama will have to make. Some official will always be telling him why something cannot be done for this reason or that. His response should be to press them hard on why things cannot be done differently.