Kundra Backs Up Obama on 'Broken' IT

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra is interpreting some unscripted comments from his boss knocking government IT as a challenge rather than an indictment.

"The President is absolutely right," Kundra said in a statement. "When we came into office, Federal IT was undeniably broken. These problems weren't created overnight and they won't be solved overnight."

President Obama played the federal government's tech capacity for laughs and groans after the press pool left a Chicago fundraiser last Thursday, apparently unaware that a live microphone was transmitting his comments to a CBS News reporter who was still listening back at the White House.

The president began by bemoaning the lack of "cool phones," "fancy buttons," and "the big screen that comes up" with maps of military operations and natural disasters.

Pretty soon, though, he was dishing in earnest about outdated IT equipment and poor purchasing.

"That's why we are aggressively cracking down on wasteful IT spending and turning around poorly performing projects," Kundra's statement said. "From consolidating data centers and moving to the cloud, we're closing the technology gap between the private and public sectors."