Obama Mocks McCain’s Computer Skills
The Obama campaign launched a new ad yesterday, “Still,” which mocks John McCain for being out of touch because, among other things, he “doesn’t know how to use a computer” and “can’t send an email.”
The Charge: McCain Computer Illiterate
The key ‘graph in its entirety:
Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn’t. He admits he still doesn’t know how to use a computer, can’t send an email, still doesn’t understand the economy, and favors 200 billion in tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class. After one president who was out of touch, we just can’t afford more of the same.
All of these points are distortions, as are most of the attacks in McCain’s ads, but they’re all based on half truths that are documented. Certainly, they’re all well within the bounds of the rules of the game.
McCain has repeatedly over the years, and as recently as the current primary campaign, stated that he doesn’t use the computer much and that he relies on his wife and staff to access it for him. HuffPo’s Sarah Granger dutifully rounds up several reports to that effect.
Basically, McCain reads email and uses the Internet to get information on a routine basis but prefers to talk to people on the phone and relies on others to do most of his keyboarding.
McCain Was a POW. In Vietnam.
The ad has given McCain a perfect — and wholly legitimate — opportunity to remind voters that he spent five and a half years being tortured while serving his country in Vietnam. (I was unaware of that! -ed. Yup, it’s true. You can look it up on the Google.) It turns out that there are numerous mainstream press reports, going back to at least the 2000 campaign, like this:
McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes.
Glenn Reynolds rounds up many more stories citing this fact. Ed Morrissey finds others. Ace others.
McCain as Web Politics Pioneer
It gets better. The point of the McCain “doesn’t know how to use a computer” attack isn’t really about technical savvy, after all, but being in tune with the modern world. The point is that McCain is stuck in 1982.
It turns out, though, that McCain was one of the first politicians to “get” the Internet as a powerful political tool. Jonah Goldberg points to a February 2000 Slate piece from “one of the most pro-Obama journalists out there,” Jacob Weisberg, called “McCain’s Web Explosion.”
Six months ago, no one would have pegged McCain as the most cybersavvy of this year’s crop of candidates. At 63, he is the oldest of the bunch and because of his war injuries, he is limited in his ability to wield a keyboard. But McCain’s job as chairman of the Senate commerce committee forced him to learn about the Internet early on, and young Web entrepreneurs such as Jerry Yang and Jeff Bezos fascinate him. Well before he announced his exploratory committee, McCain had assimilated the notion that the Web could be vital to the kind of insurgent, anti-establishment campaign he wanted to run. In December 1998, he sent his longtime political aide Wes Gullett to Minnesota to study Jesse Ventura’s successful gubernatorial campaign, which was the first to use the Web in an effective and innovative way. “Wes went up to Minnesota and talked to Ventura’s people,” McCain told reporters on the Straight Talk Express yesterday. “That’s really where we got the idea.”
Kevin Aylward notes that Joe Trippi, the Democrat considered by many to be the king of Internet political operatives, prasied McCain profusedly in his book The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything.
I had watched the “1-800” populist candidates, like Jerry Brown and Ross Perot, and I closely followed John McCain’s insurgent Republican presidential bid in 2000, the first national campaign to attempt to make use of the Internet. I held my breath that year – excited that someone was trying it, but terrified that they’d pull it off before I got the chance. They didn’t. McCain managed to pull a decent number of people, about 40,000, into his campaign via the Internet, but it was the Newton of online political campaigns. The technology simply wasn’t quite mature enough yet; enough snow hadn’t been plowed.
[…]
The Dean campaign and all that we accomplished was made possible by the ideas and hard work of countless others who came before us: From Gary Hart’s brilliant concentric circle organizing strategy to John McCain’s first bold attempt to harness the power of the Internet, there are staff members and candidates who plowed the terrain and helped create what we were able to build. [emphases added]
Obama’s Unforced Error?
So . . . Team Obama criticizes McCain for being unable to use the Internet and thus gives Team McCain 1) an opportunity to not only point out again how much he suffered putting his Country First, but to make Obama look meanspirited and insensitive for bringing up the point and 2) the ability to demonstrate that he’s not only not a moron about techical matters but actually beta tested a model that Obama and others have used more successfully since.
Beyond that, as Ace points out, Obama has inadvertantly insulted old people and handicapped people who don’t or can’t use the computer.
Oh, and in a classic rubber-glue situation, his attempt to belittle McCain’s being out of touch on technology backfires because, as half the blogosphere has pointed out, he’s demonstrated that he’s managed to hire a huge staff, none of whom apparently know how to use the Google.
My colleague Dave Schuler, who will presumably vote for his fellow Chicago Democrat in November, observed on this week’s edition of OTB Radio that McCain has, since at least the Palin pick, managed to “get inside Obama’s OODA loop.” It appears that, this time at least, Obama has done it to himself.
FTLW, I will bet McCain knows how many states we have.
The McCain campaign is now saying that McCain does indeed travel with a laptop, so I’m not sure what all those “McCain can’t use a keyboard” stories are about.
At any rate, the Obama campaign is becoming ridiculous. Worst. Attack Ad. Ever.
My guess is that it hurts like hell to type for more than a few minutes at a time and he’s not very efficient at it, so he has others do it for him whenever possible.
Wow, pretty mean spirited to go after a guy on email who has trouble typing due to war injuries. The Obama people appear to be coming unglued, it will be funny to watch the MSM scurry to play cover for The one on this gaffe.
While I agree with the gist of your post, James, I do want to add a slight clarification. All modern computers have accessibility features that help people with just about any kind of handicap use their computers. Even blind people are able to effectively use their computers these days. There is an entire market of handicap accessible hardware that would allow John McCain to use a computer despite his war injuries.
It sounds to me like McCain uses a computer to access information, but isn’t all that interested in using it for communication personally.
And to be honest, while I use my computer regularly and would have a hard time living without it, I can totally understand that some people don’t really need one and don’t care to have one. My in-laws don’t have internet-and they use a computer only to keep the books for their business and do some basic word processing when needed. I bet they aren’t the only people over the age of 60 that have no interest.
How did Kennedy, FDR, Reagan, or Clinton ever govern w/o a computer? The more you think about this ad, the stupider it gets. I think the Obama people actually think reading left wing blogs is a prerequisite for governing. We now know most of the MSM is just picking up fabrications from left wing blogs and reporting it as news, I guess we can expect Obama to get his policy directives from Josh Marshall and Andrew Sullivan, what a disgrace.
I thought this was worse ..
“So, when American workers hear John McCain talking about putting ‘Country First,’†Obama said, “it’s fair to ask —- which country?â€
Breathless coming from “The One”
I’ve got to say James, this is a pretty facile analysis of how the voting public’s relationship with the media works. McCain throws out lie after lie and they stick, notwithstanding the countless corrections and even admissions from his own people that many are flagrantly untrue.
Obama in turn makes a relatively irrelevant claim that McCain doesn’t know how to use a computer and suddenly it’s an own goal? Even if the McCain campaign does exactly as you suggest, the fact that McCain was a POW is hardly new information and isn’t directly related to the charge for people to connect those dots. You overestimate the intelligence of the stupidest creature ever to walk the face of the planet – the undecided voter.
I think this may be old-fashioned dog whistle politics; the difference is, this time it’s out of your hearing range. Don’t expect any rebuttal from McCain to gain any traction; the meme is “John McCain is old and out of touch,” and to those who this matters, the charge will stick. As Bush and McCain have demonstrated in consecutive campaigns, the question is not whether the charge has any relevance or factual basis; it is whether the media will repeat the claim under the guise of equal time. If the MSM isn’t biased (for the right), they will say “some Republicans claim that McCain does in fact know what a computer is.” After all, they’ve been doing this to Democrats for the last eight years.
wow talk about different kinds of brain power, lol.
Or lack thereof…
Well, I can see I’m outgunned here. Terrific analysis gentlemen – I stand in awe of your ability to repudiate my arguments on a point for point basis.
yup outgunned,outclinged,outbrainpowered and outpooped!
And just when I thought I had one point left unchallenged, G.A., you prove me wrong again.
lol, and just when I thought your were totally worthless for oh I can’t even remember but It’s got to be between 1st-50th time, you make me laugh.
I don’t see who this ad is directed at. I thought Obama had the young and dumb vote sewed up. I don’t see this ad playing well with the cottontops in Florida or the non-connected blue collar workers of Ohio and Pennsylvania. If it is targeting the young voters, Obama must be breaking apart faster than it seems.
It’s aimed at J2EE developers who think they should rule the world because they are the most awesomest programmers and gamer dorks.
I wish people would leave John McCain be about his computer illiteracy. He’s a POW you know. His spox Tucker Bounds had to lie to the press and claim that McCain traveled with a laptop. No one can expect an old man like that to be able to work a keyboard. No one with war injuries can do that. And his hands are too stiff to handle a blackberry or a cellphone. He’s a POW you know.
Oh, wait.
(h/t Yes, McCain Can Use Electronics)
Well, Ace can point it out, but he is wrong. My mother is older than McCain, has good self-taught computer and internet skills and is online several hours a day keeping up on current events and just studying things that interest her.
My sister in law is profoundly handicapped, but she functions reasonably well on line.
So is the McCain strategy now to exploit the handicapped and elderly for political reasons? I mean he has already exploited 9/11 victims and a deeply troubled young woman like Britney Spears, so why stop when you are on a roll?
So what is Obama’s point then?
Oh hell, here come the Ruby kids…..
So is it a problem for anyone if the digital clock on the ‘football’ keeps flashing “12:00”
billy please enumerate the lies the McCain campaign told, spread or futhered about Obama. The only lies about Obama are from Obama. In 20 years he did not know his preacher yet he donated thousands of dollars to that church, Ayers is a teacher who lives in his neighborhood and who’s kids go to school with his (Ayers kids are adults), someone other than Obama has played the race card, he will cut taxes for the middle class. The list is very very long. Practically everything Ayers, Obama and Axelrod have said is a lie. How come there is no one of Obama’s friends willing to come and stand up for him??? Why is that?? Not a soul. Why???
billy, on national TV, Obama admitted to being a Muslim. The commentator corrected him, but there is no line of questioning that would get a real Christian to say his Muslim faith.
SENATOR OBAMA,PLEASE GIVE AMERICA ~ A GOOD HONEST DOSE OF REALITY CONCERNING THIS US HORROR ???
LETS ALL HOPE OUR MEDIA FRIENDS CONTINUE TO ALSO SHOW AN INTEREST IN REPORTING ON THIS AMERICAN HORROR FACING THESE (TENS OF THOUSANDS) FORGOTTEN AND TRAPPED POORER AMERICANS, AND HOW THIS PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDER HANDLES THIS VERY SERIOUS ISSUE FACING AMERICA?S LATINO AND BLACK AMERICAN COMMUNITIES ????
WITH 80% OF THE BLACK AMERICAN VOTERS SAYING THEY SUPPORT SENATOR OBAMA IN THIS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, IT IS ONLY FAIR FOR EVERYONE TO KNOW PRIOR BEING ELECTED OUR NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES HOW THIS DEMOCRATIC SENATOR TRULY FEELS ABOUT THIS AMERICAN JUDICIAL HORROR CONTINUING TO INFLICT GRAVE HARM ON THE BLACK AMERICAN FAMILIES AND THEIR COMMUNITIES NATIONWIDE ??????
*** WHEN GOD?S FACE BECAME VERY RED ***
THE US SUPREME COURT GAVE ENEMY COMBATANTS FEDERAL APPEAL HC RIGHTS LAWYERS AND PROPER ACCESS TO US FEDERAL COURTS,AND POORER AMERICANS (MANY EVEN ON DEATH ROW) ARE DENIED PROPER FEDERAL APPEAL LEGAL REPRESENTATION TO OUR US FEDERAL COURTS OF APPEAL, AND ROTTING IN AMERICAN PRISONS NATIONWIDE ?????????
***THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE $LOWLY FINDING OUT HOW EA$Y IT I$ FOR MIDDLE CLA$$ AND WORKING POOR AMERICAN$ TO FALL VICTIM TO OUR U$ MONETARY JUDICIAL $Y$TEM.
****WHEN THE US INNOCENT WERE ABANDONED BY THE GUILTY ****
The prison experts have reported that there are 100,000 innocent Americans currently being falsely imprisoned along with the 2,300,000 total US prison population nationwide.
Since our US Congress has never afforded poor prison inmates federal appeal legal counsel for their federal retrials,they have effectively closed the doors on these tens of thousands of innocent citizens ever being capable of possibly exonerating themselves to regain their freedom through being granted new retrials.
This same exact unjust situation was happening in our Southern States when poor and mostly uneducated Black Americans were being falsely imprisoned for endless decades without the needed educational skills to properly submit their own written federal trial appeals.
**INNOCENT AMERICANS ARE DENIED REAL HC RIGHTS WITH THEIR FEDERAL APPEALS !!
This devious and deceptive judicial process of making our poor and innocent prison inmates formulate and write their own federal appeal legal cases for possible retrials on their state criminal cases,is still in effect today even though everyone in our US judicial system knows that without proper legal representation, these tens of thousands of innocent prison inmates will be denied their rightful opportunities of ever being granted new trials from our federal appeal judges!!
Sadly, the true US *legal* Federal Appeal situation that occurs when any of our uneducated American prison inmates are forced to attempt to submit their own written Federal Appeals (from our prisons nationwide) without the assistance of proper legal counsel, is that they all are in reality being denied their legitimate rights for Habeas Corpus and will win any future Supreme Court Case concerning this injustice!
For our judicial system and our US Congressional Leaders Of The Free World to continue to pretend that this is a real and fair opportunity for our American Middle Class and Working Poor Citizens, only delays the very needed future change of Federal Financing of all these Federal appeals becoming a normal formula of Our American judicial system.
It was not so very long ago that Public Defenders became a Reality in this country.Prior that legal reality taking place, their were also some who thought giving anyone charged with a crime a free lawyer was a waste of taxpayers $$.
This FACADE and HORROR of our Federal Appeal proce$$ is not worthy of the Greatest Country In The World!
***GREAT SOCIETIES THAT DO NOT PROTECT EVEN THEIR INNOCENT, BECOME THE GUILTY!
A MUST READ ABOUT AMERICAN INJUSTICE:
1) YAHOO AND 2) GOOGLE
MANNY GONZALES THE KID THAT EVERYONE FORGOT IN THE CA PRISON SYSTEM.
** A JUDICIAL RIDE OF ONES LIFE !
la*********************@ya***.com
(424-247-2013)
My guess is that it hurts like hell to type for more than a few minutes at a time and he’s not very efficient at it, so he has others do it for him whenever possible.
Oh, is that the reason he uses his Blackberry and cell phone all the time? Maybe Blackberry and cell phone keyboards don’t hurt to type on when you’ve been tortured.
Oh, is that the reason he uses his Blackberry and cell phone all the time? Maybe Blackberry and cell phone keyboards don’t hurt to type on when you’ve been tortured.
Cell phones often require no more than a push of a couple of buttons if you have the numbers stored. Also the pain could also be an issue of hand positioning.
Blackberries allow you to use your thumbs, and some hand held devices use a stylus and don’t required finger taps.
But either way-I would still like to know what Obama’s point is in this ad about email-what exactly were we supposed to come away with?
Ya don’t you love it when some of our self described patriots who blog here only care about the feelings, rights and well being, of captured enemy combatant terrorists who but for a few sad incidents were only tortured in their minds, and hate the guts of American hero who was a POW and was tortured for 5 years, nice job losers.
On OODA loops, my understanding is if you are in there long enough, your opponet starts to get freaked out, and make stupid mistakes.
Just sayin’.
Wow. This is the first I’ve heard of this Obama ad and the news story around it. I think the point the ad is making is clear. Regardless of McCain’s POW and senior citizen status, all of the above is true. As a voter really seeking change, yes, that raises a concern. I want the leader of the free world to be agile physically and mentally. McCain is fragile. Sorry that’s what happens when you get old, there’s nothing mean-spirited about that.
Physical agility’s no requisite. FDR ran US efforts in WW2 from a wheelchair. One would also get, from the articles showing, “No, he really IS quite Internet-savvy.” that the ad makes no serious assault on his mental agility, either.
And to the whole counter argument that, “Well, he could manage to type if he really wanted to; look at Stephen Hawking, for instance.” …he’d be the president. Whoever the president is, they’re the center of the world’s most complex communications system built up for the purposes of keeping a single person in touch with anyone in the world at any time. He wouldn’t need to type because he can talk to anyone he needs to. If he really really needs to, he can just say the word and within a minute there’ll be a secretary ready to take dictation. I believe he has staff able to do typing for him now.
He may have mentioned in the past that he doesn’t send emails. Some Obama staffer saw that, thought it a great idea for an ad, brought it up, and they all ran with it. Unfortunately, they decided to extrapolate that also into “He admits he still doesn’t know how to use a computer,” which is overreaching and, furthermore, verifiably false, as shown by easily-found archived articles.
I love how the Townhouse/Kos/Obama talking points are now “McCain uses a laptop/cellphone all the time”, because THAT COMPLETELY CONTRADICTS THE OBAMA AD. Either he’s a technophobe geezer (as the ad claims) and Obama’s mocking his POW injuries, or he’s at least of average computer skills and the ad is a complete lie.
If it wasn’t for the MSM covering for Obama, this election would not even be close.
But it is. That’s worth thinking about….
Also, if Obama should win, the USA will be a paradise because the MSM will only print positive spin.
There’s a lot of difference between being ignorant or illiterate in general and just being the same on computer use. My daughter started college this fall and can use the internet, IM, and a host of MS applications to do her homework, but I had to explain to her the difference between a 32 bit OS and a 64 bit OS, (even what bits are), what computer memory is versus CPU, and secondary storage — when we bought her a laptop computer. In her own way she was computer illiterate. What’s important is McCains literacy in US and world events, (he is not illiterate in either), not how he obtains this information.
ha ha ha!
Liberals are hating it. Repubs loving it! We’ve known for months now how Obama says the most idiotic things ever, and now I suppose he is truly running the entire campaign (his whole basis for exec exp.) since he continues to stupid things.
Billy, u and the libs are OVER.
That ad is a microcosm of what is wrong with the Obama candidacy. It insults McCain. It is untrue. And it contains not one word about whether Obama is qualified to be President.
I believe the original line was that he couldn’t use the internet, not that he couldn’t use a computer. This ad seems to have confused the two, but I don’t think that Kos is.
Yeah, well, then again, so far as I’m aware, she didn’t get the snot beat out of her in a POW camp, either.
Who, wanting to be President, will mock a former POW for injury suffered in the service of his country? Barack Obama, that’s who. And who can we depend on to defend such an act, just like we depend on the sun coming up in the morning? Anjin-San. Stay classy, there, guys… stay classy.
You’re going to have to supply a link to that specific statement, because “He doesn’t use a computer” isn’t mocking his war injuries.
How des one link an ad?
The clear point you’re dancing around is that the charge is he’s stupid and out of touch based on the idea he doesn’t use a computer, when in fact the reason he doesn’t is his inability to do so because of his injuries. The slightest fact check on Obama’s part would have revealed this.
Obama’s crew is coming unglued, gang.
Why would his injuries prevent him from using a computer? As has been pointed out already in this thread, computers are handicap accessible. If Stephen Hawking can use a computer, John McCain certainly can.
Perhaps because unlike Hawking, McCain still has other options available to him, for what he needs of the technology.
So now you are backing off your claim that McCain is physically unable to use a computer?
If John McCain is physically capable of using a computer, then mocking him for not using one is not mocking him for any physical inabilities, as you implied at 11:48 this morning.
You’re asking me to back off a claim I never made.
Clearly, even he states he’s ABLE to… but that it’s a painful ordeal, and as a result, slow.
“inability’ is a matter of degree where disabilities are concerned. I speak from history; I have some experience in working with the handicapped in this area.
Oh, so your claim is then that McCain doesn’t use a computer because it hurts, and nobody has bothered to tell him that there are peripherals that can help with that?
Just like Gore claimed to invent the internet, McCain’s campaign has said he invented the Blackberry. Can we all now admit he is tech savvy, after all the inventor of the Blackberry must be.
I’ve used a Blackberry, and I would argue against that assumption.
In the Bill Oreilly interview of Barack Obama, regarding the discussion
about Obama’s energy plan, in response to Bill asking
Barack, what if the development of alternate energy
sources don’t deliver. Obama compared his approach
to John Kennedy’s space program, and how if you go
for it , the answers will come. But, the distinction between
our space program and our energy challenge is … If it had taken
us longer than we thought to get to the moon … or, if we hadn’t
gotten to the moon … no big deal. But, if we put all our hopes
into alternative energy, and it doesn’t happen in time … or, if
it doesn’t work, our entire economy, as well as our national
security could end up in ruins. Our country’s entire energy
infrastructure revolves around petroleum. 167,000 gas stations,
the 250 million vehicles. Democrats keep citing how long it will take
to get more oil out of the ground. But, even if an alternative
fuel is found tomorrow, how long will it take America to
transition from our existing infrastructure to a completely
new one? In the meantime, people have to get to work, and
goods have to get to market. This is an important reason to
secure our energy needs with oil drilling and mining oil shale,
while we try to develop alternate energy. Obama and
Pelosi also want to dip into the strategic oil reserve, as a way
of pandering to voters, but what if we have a true emergency,
like Hurricane Ike, or Hugo Chavez cuts us off, or Amadinajad
cripples the straits of Hormuz? Obama seems to be
playing fast and loose with our country’s future … gambling
with our future, all based on hope and faith … with consequences
which could be dire. Obama’s plans, or lack thereof, are
extremely irresponsible. Not suprising from a candidate who
does not have the experience, qualifications, or judgement to lead, as
President of the United States.Furthermore, check these clash videos I found yesterday about the US Presidential candidates have talked taxes. Well, it’s entitled Obama v. McCain on Taxes. Watch these statements – then vote in http://clashorama.com/index.php?id=194