McCain: I'm 'Learning To Get Online Myself'

The good news: John McCain is in fact aware of the Internet. From today's New York Times interview:

Q: What websites if any do you look at regularly?

Mr. McCain: Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously, everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge. Sometimes I look at Politico. Sometimes RealPolitics, sometimes.

(Mrs. McCain and Ms. Buchanan both interject: "Meagan's blog!")

Mr. McCain: Excuse me, Meagan's blog. And we also look at the blogs from Michael and from you that may not be in the newspaper, that are just part of your blog.

Q: But do you go on line for yourself?

Mr. McCain: They go on for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don't expect to be a great communicator, I don't expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need - including going to my daughter's blog first, before anything else.

Q: Do you use a blackberry or email?

Mr. McCain: No

Mark Salter: He uses a BlackBerry, just ours.

So, if he's just learning to go online, what was McCain campaign manager Rick Davis talking about last month?

BRZEZINSKI: Does John McCain, does he use the internet? Does he use email? [...]

DAVIS: He actually is, he always is grabbing people's Blackberrys on the bus. In fact, no reporter's Blackberry is safe from his prying eyes. He loves to tool around on the internet, he especially loves the videos that get produced that usually poke fun at him. I think that's his most entertaining part of the internet.

Comments

[BADEN]

Isn't that cute.

He's no Grampy
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rJrY0_wWqyQ

[cjk002]

Well, at least we know what McCain's first hundred days in office would look like.....

[DaOne]

I'd make factcheck.org your home page McLiar

[oncethere]

I don't know if it's just old age. Bush didn't use the "internets" either. I think it has more to do with the profound incuriosity these morons have about the world. I doubt seriously that either Bush or McCain have read much in their lives. They have God and Free Market economics and that tells them all they need to know.

But it is the lack of curiosity about the world, the de-valuing of learning, that concerns me here more than the ability to go online---they can learn that in a few days.

[keepemhonest]

Q: But do you go on line for yourself?

Mr. McCain: They go on for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon,


1. How hard is it to get online?
*Answer: turn on power button, click on icon that gets you online.

2. How long does it take to LEARN to get on line:
*Answer: Oh, about 10 seconds.

But, for whippersnapper McCain, "They go online for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon. LETS HOPE SO ... HOW SLOW ARE YOU ON THE UPTAKE Sen. McCain?

[Bluesue]

"He'll have that down fairly soon"????? Now that's scary.

I read he's going to start a weekly radio address. Guess a podcast or a YouTube video is too advanced for him.

[JadedAggie]

Radio is a strongly conservative news medium so it makes sense if you think about it carefully. He knows that he would have a very friendly audience. Plus could you imagine actually listening to a podcast of McBush talking? You thinking listening to W give speeches is horrifying just wait until you have to listen to McBush.

[thepoliticalcat]

Plus, he's got a face made for radio!

[cjk002]

Radio is just like McCain, old. The conservatives who listen to talk radio are the one's that hate McCain the most, so I don't know if doing radio addresses is neccesarily a good idea for him.

Maybe it's just me, but don't you think it makes McCain sound even more feeble when he talks about how his staff has to "show" him websites? In a world where the economy is inextricably connected to this technology and China is currently training an army of hackers to infiltrate our defense networks, I'm more than a little worried about having a guy who has to be "shown" the internet in the oval office.

[obackarama]

Someone tell him to turn off his left turn signal; he's slowing down the whole internet.

[adeakili]

lol! true. jamming up the whole superhighway.

[luvobama]

Now that's way funny!!!

[DangerWillRobinson]

brake!

[DangerWillRobinson]

,,,and to release his parking break!

[LAB11]

All together now---Out of touch old rich man!

[bascombe]

I wonder which finger he uses and if he sniffs it afterward.

[wagadog]

so go online yourself already.

[VSamuels]

Let's imagine if Obama had said this---it would be a major headline across the corporate media. McCain is literally the godsend of the corporate world and they are doing their best to shield him and his weaknesses from clear public view. Their goal is basically to create an image that stands up under the scrutiny of the upcoming debates; which the McCain folks know will be painful and disappointing. The more they can gloss over these sorts of 'red flags' the more goodwill they can build up when McCain sits on stage with Obama and is overmatched.

While using the internet is basically a requirement today to function in most jobs, it tells us further still that McCain is basically learning one or two ways: he is reading material redacted by aides or he is receiving verbal summaries from his aides. Here, he may not be alone, as I imagine there are tons of stuff that would perhaps waste his time, yet to consider that he can't or doesn't correspond personally is the worse aspect. He appears to be naturally shielded from original thoughts--his own, and after Bush we certainly don't need a CIC like this again.

[mlaiuppa]

Geez. How long does it take to go online?

My Mother is 78 and has been doing e-mail for....a decade. I've also taught her to google search and she can buy and sell on eBay. My Dad follows his stocks online.

McCain is TOO OLD. His thinking is stuck in the 50s. He has no business running this country in the 21st century.

[bosshogg]

mcsame is use to writing on stone tables give him a break.................................................

[Purobi]

Mu 90 year old Aunt Ruth goes online by herself using a huge monitor ever since her eye sight got worse. She even uses Skype. Should I laugh or cry?

[MsLiz]

I had to google Skype, it's a voice over internet program that saves your aunt money on phone calls. Good for her, she lived through the first depression and learned to be economical.

[Anonani]

I so don't care whether or not Sen McCain is computer literate. There is so much about him that makes him an undesirable candidate that one more thing like this is just pile on for me. I do not like to think of myself as an ageist.. However, Sen McCain is my mothers age and I know that like her, he probably has good and bad days of the kind that comes with aging. Imagining the future of the US when the lense that he looks through has become one that not only cannot keep up with "new fangled things" but, more importantly, neither caring nor seeing their value.

We need a President who can see the future, imagine beyond it, and try to take us there. That is not John McCain.

[firewmn]

I want a President who can go online access email, outlook, read budget sheets, can flip to the next page or use powerpoint presentations.. those are user friendly features he should certainly know how to use..

[CintiBlue]

You can push that age higher. I think of him as my parents' age, and if they were still alive they'd be well into their 80's.

[CintiBlue]

I just did my math, and they would have passed 90 a year or two ago.

[Birdman]

Come on McCain, I bet even GW knows how to do get on-line, in fact I cannot think of any one that has not done that, do you realize John, that without some kind of basic computer skills you will be qualified to dig ditches, well now that I think about it that is not true either most excavators nowadays have computers of some sort. I guess you had better stay in government John you are not qualified to have a civillian job.