McCain Invented Blackberry? Adviser Says He Helped

MIAMI — Move over, Al Gore. You may lay claim to the Internet, but John McCain helped create the BlackBerry.

At least that's the contention of a top McCain policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Waving his BlackBerry personal digital assistant and citing McCain's work as a senator, he told reporters Tuesday, "You're looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create."

A McCain aide later dismissed the remark as "a boneheaded joke by a staffer."

McCain has acknowledged that he doesn't know how to use a computer and can't send e-mail, one of the BlackBerry's prime functions.

Holtz-Eakin's argument is similar to one advanced by Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000. Gore once boasted about "taking the initiative to create the Internet" through technological and educational policies. He later was mocked for claiming to have invented the Internet, although he never made such a claim.

Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said McCain's service on and leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee put him at the intersection of a number of economic interests, including the telecommunications industry.

The Arizona senator's handling of regulation and deregulation of that industry in particular left him with the skills to help revive the economy amid a mortgage crisis, an energy crisis and a Wall Street meltdown, the adviser said.

"He can and has the judgment to put people in place with technical expertise, with the history of experience in the areas necessary, that we're going to get reforms," Holtz-Eakin said.

Senior McCain aide Matt McDonald said that the senator "laughed" when he heard the comment about the BlackBerry.

"He would not claim to be the inventor of anything, much less the BlackBerry. This was obviously a boneheaded joke by a staffer," McDonald said.

In a statement, Democratic candidate Barack Obama's campaign spokesman Bill Burton said: "If John McCain hadn't said that 'the fundamentals of our economy are strong' on the day of one of our nation's worst financial crises, the claim that he invented the BlackBerry would have been the most preposterous thing said all week."

Comments

[sunnyjane]

05:08 AM on 09/19/2008

Great sigh here. I'm a fervent Obama/Biden supporter, and enjoy reading these comments. However, you all would be much more credible if you could just learn to spell, punctuate, type (use upper case when appropriate) and use correct grammar. It pains me to try to decipher some of these run-on comments.

Clean it up, people! We're talking serious s**t here. Let's give it the credibility it deserves.

Obama/08

[ewoman]

08:21 AM on 09/17/2008

I thought he helped create the Model T...

[ohbomba]

07:58 AM on 09/17/2008

Blackberries are one of my favorite fruits......JUST HOW OLD IS THIS GUY?

[dogwalker]

07:55 AM on 09/17/2008

One day while sitting in the day room of the nursing home John McCain mixed his stewed prunes and his raspberry Jello and called it "Blackberry". Can someone please call the nurse to clean him up now?

[TchoupitoulasCanal]

04:41 AM on 09/17/2008

Oh....THAT'S why it doesn't work. I knew I should have bought a Treo.....

[RFBorjal]

04:39 AM on 09/17/2008

Just in from the Dissociated Press:

Fresh from the monumental success of his Blackberry, John McCain is now market-testing his newly developed, state-of-the-art Cranberry in Wasilla, Alaska and Little Diomede Island where caribous can see Russia on a clear day. The Cranberry is scheduled for roll-out in all 50 States and the Territories on Thanksgiving Day.

According to a senior aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the press on the matter, McCain stumbled on the concept of the Cranberry while trying to send an email on an IBM electric typewriter.

[LAR1969]

02:57 AM on 09/17/2008

I challenge John McCain to set the alarm clock on my BlackBerry or use the calculator function. We'll see if he IMs me to accept the challenge.

[twiggy2]

02:47 AM on 09/17/2008

this has gone from ridiculous to absurd. it is funny though. i can actually picture that.
on the serious side {still laughing } mccains staffers don't even know when they should stop lieing!
mccain corrupts the morals of even the young - i wonder if he will take his message of "truth" to any of the local pre-k and k.

[screenname223]

01:02 AM on 09/17/2008

I think that what was meant to be said about inventing the blackberry is that McCain has picked blackberries or bought them at the grocery store in the little container.

Besides I would doubt that he would even know how to operate a blackberry. If he can't type on the keyboard because of his P.O.W. injuries how in the world would he be able to operate a blackberry.

Although I am sure he knows how to eat a blackberry.

OBAMA/BIDEN 11/04/08

[IForgotMyName]

12:56 AM on 09/17/2008

At least that explains why he does not know how to use a computer. He was so busy inventing the Blackberry in Toronto, Canada. Isn't that considered treason to develop this for the Canadians?

[Ironfox]

06:10 PM on 09/17/2008

That's RIM, in Waterloo Ont. There is more to Canada than Toronto.

[Democrat till I die]

11:32 PM on 09/16/2008

ITS TRUE !!! McCain invented the actual blackberry, not the telecommunications device by RIMM. He is also responsible for strawberries and developed, through a joint venture relationship, what we now call blueberries. It would be on Wikipedia if McCain's war injuries would allow him to use a keyboard and also if he knew what a computer was.

This is another example of the typical liberal MSM twisting McCain's words to make it sound like he is taking crazy pills.

[bhatsor]

12:06 AM on 09/17/2008

Posted from a Blackberry invented by John McCain.

[Ironfox]

06:12 PM on 09/17/2008

That's RIM, Research In Motion Ltd.

[IForgotMyName]

11:24 PM on 09/16/2008

I thought McCain invented the Pony Express.

[bhatsor]

12:07 AM on 09/17/2008

No, sir. Express talk.

There a lot of things money can buy, for everything else, there is POWcard.

[bhatsor]

12:16 AM on 09/17/2008

Express Talk to Nowhere...

[LAR1969]

02:58 AM on 09/17/2008

This is the funniest thing I've read all evening. Thank you.

[edmalloy]

10:51 PM on 09/16/2008

Isn't the Blackberry a Canadian product? di McCain annex Canada too?

[jacqmac]

11:49 PM on 09/16/2008

Yes-a 'little company' called Research In Motion started working on and introduced a Blackberry prototype back when (sorry, technology moves sooo fast these days I forgot exactly WHEN). Blackberry was introduced into THIS country BY RIM. Howeverr, along came a rival who was based in AMERICA (country first) and the WAR (I'm not kidding) was on. Matter of fact, RIM was NEAR bankruptcy at least twice in the last eight years due to continuing lawsuits over exactly WHAT company owned the rights to produce and market the Blackberry under that name. RIM won. The AMERICAN company and RIM worked out some kind of compromise, but not until after the 59th court appearance. IF THIS is something that John McCain had his hand in AT ALL, it is NOT something I would shout about. And I hope that no Canadian paper or television network gets hold of this story---because it won't look too pretty for John McCain's 'foreign relations' policy either!

[jaydfl]

10:40 PM on 09/16/2008

I'm sure someone may have said this all ready, but right now I'm too tired to go back and read all the posts after a long hard day being a fundamental.
But I bet it was the wheel he invented!

[jdenham]

10:33 PM on 09/16/2008

Senator McCain: Hey look what I invented I am gonna call it a blackberry.
Senator Stevens: You should use it on this new thing I just heard about.
Senator McCain: Yeh I was gonna hook it up to the telegraph system.
Senator Stevens: No you should use it on the internets. Its a series of tubes. It Is not like a big truck.