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

[ComnCents]

You can bet that his handlers will never show him this site.

[NotMcCain]

"They go (online) for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself."

Oh. My. God. That is a priceless quote.

Not ONLY that he doesn't go online himself, but needs people to do it for him.

But that the LEARNING CURVE of "going online" is so steep for him!

I almost feel sorry for him. But...no. At 71, he's CHOSEN to run for one of the toughest, most responsible, most intellectually complex job in the world, President of the United States.

He's. Just. Not. Up. To. It.

[MegInPA]

Exactly. In this day and age, to be so completely technologically inept is a major handicap, and that he does not even seem to be able to learn the simplest thing is just scary.

[VSamuels]

Yet a vast number of McCain backers will never hear about this, because the corporate media likes to fan the flames of race and Jesse Jackson than deal with the possibility that McCain the POTUS doesn't not have computer skills. But, the larger question is why would McCain or his aides not ensure he was computer literate in the first place? If they are so inept and incompetent that they could believe it was unimportant for the POTUS to possess the skills accepted readily by most of the technological world, than this leads us to who would have the power to bend the information he would receive and can not get on his own?

Those around McCain would be more powerful than him, if he can't fact check the facts upon which he would be required to make decisions. This what is scary, he would be yet another in the long line of republican puppets owned by corporations with hidden agendas.

[Colmore]

I doubt if Georgie knows how to go online. McCain said Georgie is "dumb as a stump" so McCain should be intelligent enough for the job.

[thepoliticalcat]

How tough can it be? Once someone's set up the necessary connections and account, you, like, turn on your Windows box (a Mac would be too difficult for JohnnyMacAncient) and double-click your browser icon. Whoa!

[Rickter]

This guy is sounding older by the second..

[NickNas]

Every single elderly person I know can get online. The fact that the whole modern world can get online and he cannot tells you that this man stopped GROWING and LEARNING Decades ago.

THAT IS SOMETHING TO FEAR PEOPLE!

[adeakili]

I agree, NickNas. Something is very wrong with that. McCain is resistant to change and lacks the vision and dynamism we need in a president. I wouldn't be surprised if he supports the telecom giants in their efforts to privatize the net and make content subscription-based. He is so far behind the times, it is difficult to imagine him leading the country effectively.

"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."

Is he not accessing the net by two clicks of a mouse like the rest of us? Or is it that the concept was simply to hard to grasp? My four year old has been getting on since he was 18 months old.

[Angus703]

Ha, I won't say that just because he doesn't use the internet he isn't fit to be President (there are more important reasons for that never to happen), but email I mean how old do you have to be to not use email. My 86 year old grandmother uses email.

Also Rick Davis, it is time to stop trying to make McCain look hip everyone knows he isn't. If anything they think he is cute like their grandparent that can't fumbles while trying to remember names or votes or positions on issues or what the heck Sunnis and Shias are and what is this constitution that everyone is talking about.

[Sparty1]

Oh lord. He really does sound like he's from the stone age. My 80 yr old granny can go and pull up email and look at the pics that we send her all the time. She's been doing that for years.

[VSamuels]

I know the republicans love 'outsourcing' but it raises the question of how has he been communicating with his surrogates, staffers and supporters? The sort of answer regarding the blackberry makes one question if McCain has a cell phone, I've seen Obama on many occasions use his while moving to board his plane, but I don't ever recall McCain doing so.

Furthermore, doesn't McCain have personal files he needs to access on a moment's notice that he doesn't share with others? This guy sounds like someone still living in 70s, how the MSM doesn't seriously question how a computer illiterate can run a government operating on zillions of computer software programs is unbelievable.

He guy can fly a jet, but doesn't have a clue how to operate a PC. And, the MSM yawns!

[poco767b]

I am familiar with all of the traditions of the internets