Posted by Mark Silva at 9:25 am CDT

The buzz around the White House was noticeably absent this morning, with an apparent hemispheric breakdown in the ubiquitious BlackBerry handheld email devices on which 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and much of Washington depends for instantaneous communication.

"We're 14 hours into no BlackBerries,'' White House spokesman Tony Fratto said this morning with a wry footnote. "We've already started a 12-step group.''

It was no joke for Research in Motion, however. The company that owns the BlackBerry system saw the value of its stock shares fall 9 percent in premarket trading today as a result of the overnight crash.

A system failure of the BlackBerry wireless e-mail system has snarled use of the popular devices.

The Associated Press reported toda that a recording on the BlackBerry helpline Wednesday acknowledged the problem, but did not detail its cause or exact scope.

"Please be advised that we are currently experiencing a service interruption that is causing delays in sending or receiving messages," the message said. "We apologize for the inconvenience, and will provide updates as soon as they become available."

New York's WNBC NewsChannel4, however, reported the BlackBerry system suffered a "massive system failure" at 7 pm CDT Tuesday and that it had affected all BlackBerry users in the Western Hemisphere.

A message seeking comment was left with the company's head office in Waterloo, Ontario.

We would have emailed them, but you know...