He Can't Email...and apparently his opponent can't google [Obama belittles McCain war injuries]

Why can’t McCain e-mail? Boston Globe explained it in 2000; Update: So did Forbes

posted at 7:15 pm on September 12, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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Earlier today, Barack Obama’s campaign released an ad attacking John McCain for not knowing how to send an e-mail. Their crack research team apparently never heard of Google or Lexis-Nexis, but Jonah Goldberg does. He discovers why McCain doesn’t use a keyboard — his torturers made sure he couldn’t. The Boston Globe reported it eight years ago:

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain’s encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He’s an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can’t raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.
After Vietnam, McCain had Ann Lawrence, a physical therapist, help him regain flexibility in his leg, which had been frozen in an extended position by a shattered knee. It was the only way he could hope to resume his career as a Navy flier, but Lawrence said the treatment, taken twice a week for six months, was excruciatingly painful.
”He endured it, he wouldn’t settle for less,” said Lawrence, who rejoiced with McCain when he passed the Navy physical. ”I have never seen such toughness and resolve.”

Making fun of a war hero’s severe injuries — smooth move, Team O. Talk about computer illiteracy! Doesn’t anyone on the Obama campaign know what they’re doing? Didn’t it ever occur to them that a man who can’t raise his arms above his head might have a physical barrier to using a computer?

If this is what happens when they takes the gloves off, maybe they should just keep them on in the future.

Update (AP): I’m not sure how he’s accessing the ‘Net given his injuries, but he does appear to have some kind of access. From an NYT interview in July:

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.

Maybe he’s able to move the mouse so he can access sites bookmarked for him?

Update (Ed): Jonah Goldberg makes an excellent point in an update:

Lord knows I think the chicken-hawk arguments are stupid. And I don’t think the fact that Obama never served in the military should count against him in and of itself. But how stupid is it for the Obama campaign to claim that McCain is unqualified to be president because he can’t grasp cyber-security issues based on the fact he has never sent an email when the McCain campaign can just as easily say Obama can’t understand first order national security issues because he’s never fired a rife, flown a plane, commanded men in battle, or faced an enemy? I mean which prepares someone to be commander in chief better, hitting “send” on AOL or fighting a war?

In fact, didn’t Obama just make all of those arguments valid and fair?

Update II: Ace notes that Forbes Magazine noted McCain’s disability in 2000, too:

In certain ways, McCain was a natural Web candidate. Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee and regarded as the U.S. Senate’s savviest technologist, McCain is an inveterate devotee of email. His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. “She’s a whiz on the keyboard, and I’m so laborious,” McCain admits.

How difficult was this for a campaign to find before they ran an ad embarrassing themselves?

I keep hearing people on the radio telling me how Obama is "brilliant" but as with Kerry and Gore before him I see no evidence of this in his actions.

Libs are all about pedigree--if you went to the right school and believe the right view on abortion, ZAP! you're in the club for life.

It's not about experience, it's about what you've LEARNED from your experiences, whatever those experiences were, and how you use that knowledge to work in government. I'm still waiting for evidence of Obama's supposed brilliance, but I've been waiting about two years now and still--nada.

I think the grunts over in DUmmieland are aware of how stupid the ad was. They have been cringing ever since the ad came out.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Wondering No More [Jonah Goldberg]

Yep. The day after 9/11, as part of its "get tough" makeover, the Obama campaign is mocking John McCain for not using a computer, without caring why he doesn't use a computer. From the AP story about the computer illiterate ad:

"Our economy wouldn't survive without the Internet, and cyber-security continues to represent one our most serious national security threats," [Obama spokesman Dan] Pfeiffer said. "It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail."

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "extraordinary." The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country. From the Boston Globe (March 4, 2000):

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

In a similar vein I guess it's an outrage that the blind governor of New York David Patterson doesn't know how to drive a car. After all, transportation issues are pretty important. How dare he serve as governor while being ignorant of what it's like to navigate New York's highways.

Update: Well, now the story is up on Drudge (You heard it here first!). Re: Mark's point about how the supposedly web-savvy Obama campaign can't handle Google, here's another story confirming he has difficulty using a keyboard. Ironically, it's from one of the most pro-Obama journalists out there, Jacob Weisberg, in an article in Slate in 2000:

"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."

Now, in response to some angry criticism already coming in: Feh.

Some say, So what if he was handicapped? He could still learn how to send email.

Sure, but why would he? Bill Clinton sent two emails during his entire presidency and often admitted he didn't know squat about the internet.

One reader says "Steven Hawking knows how to use a computer!" Yes, because if he didn't he couldn't do his job or communicate. McCain, like Clinton, didn't have that problem. Here's a more sane version of t he same complaint:

You are ridiculous about this. While of course McCain probably can't type for long periods or in the manner in which many of us do, there are a tremendous amount of people that peck with just their index fingers. He also can surely use a mouse. How much typing do you really have to do to send emails and use the internet. Plus, when he was asked point blank about it he never said he couldn't type. I am sure he can't use a blackberry, but there are tons of people with far worse injuries than McCain that use a computer.

That's absolutely true, I'm sure. But they need to use computers to get through life. McCain doesn't. And the fact that he's not blaming his disability hardly sounds like a serious indictment. If he did blame his disability, many of the same folks yelling at me would be complaining that McCain's whining.

Now, I'd hardly be surprised if McCain could type for short stretches and all that. The point is, that it's perfectly understandable why he wouldn't get in the habit of it.

Oh one last point for now: Lord knows I think the chicken-hawk arguments are stupid. And I don't think the fact that Obama never served in the military should count against him in and of itself. But how stupid is it for the Obama campaign to claim that McCain is unqualified to be president because he can't grasp cyber-security issues based on the fact he has never sent an email when the McCain campaign can just as easily say Obama can't understand first order national security issues because he's never fired a rife, flown a plane, commanded men in battle, or faced an enemy? I mean which prepares someone to be commander in chief better, hitting "send" on AOL or fighting a war?

Update II: On the other hand: I don't know what to make of this interview with the New York Times. He sounds awfully web savvy in it, which makes the Obama ad sound unfair. And if you read it closely, it sounds like he knows how to surf with a mouse, but doesn't do much by way of typing.

09/12 06:42 PM

That was good stuff, well presented. Thanks.

I can’t say enough about documenting comments as you have. Sources, references, links, etc. The MSM can be sloppy, but it doesn’t mean we have to.

Two contrasting “statements” for you to appreciate my point on documenting:

a. “The first thing Obama did in the Illinois Senate was declare a Muslim holiday.”

b. “Obama sponsored Bill SR0110 in the 90th General Assembly
to declare November 1, 1997 to be Islamic Community Center Day.”

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/legisnet90/summary/900SR0110.html

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/legisnet90/srgroups/sr/900SR0110LV.html

The resolution died in 1999.

See the difference here? Item (a) could just be a creative lie. Item (b) establishes the truth conclusively. Which would you rather read?

Obama is really desparate, and in the meanwhile, he is showing that he is a low life.

When will Obama (peace be upon him) offer a sincere apology to McCain?

Will he fire Plouffter?

Not holding my breath.

bookmark

Obambi is an idiot.

Their first effort to be ‘aggresive’ fell flat. Instead of getting people’s attention to their message, the campaign shows their incompetence. Now, if they claim that they knew about McCain’s disability, they run a risk of being seen as attacking a disable veteran. On the other hand, if they claim that they did not know about it, it shows that this article is right: 0bama may know how to use email, but they don’t know how to use search engine. Perhaps Senator McCain, a former chair of US Senate’s Committee on Communication, can teach them a thing or two about internet.

The Dims are trying to blow up so-called “Troopergate” in order to prosecute their feverish desire to destroy Palin. All Sarah needs to do is come out and say: “The man tasered my nephew, a ten-year old boy, and threatened to kill my sister and my father. He has no business being an Alaska State Trooper. If my actions in firing the man who had oversight over the that trooper, and who would not terminate that trooper’s position with the Alaska State Police, seemed “over-the-top,” please accept that I did it in what I considered to be the best interests of the people of the great State of Alaska.”

The first thing Obama did in the Illinois Senate was declare a Muslim holiday

Is is some sort od special Moslem holiday so that Obama has to refrain from technology, but also has to shoot off his mouth about others use of it?

I think the grunts over in DUmmieland are aware of how stupid the ad was. They have been cringing ever since the ad came out.

Considering the average IQ at DU is in the single digits, if the DUmmies can notice this ad for its stupidity, then the ad is full bore, WFO*, totally and rock solid STUPID!!!!

*(WFO is an old motocrosser term for the position he likes/needs to hold the throttle. It stand for Wide "Freaking" Open....)

“i keep hearing people on the radio telling me how obama is ‘brilliant’, but as with kerry and gore before him i see no evidence of this in his actions.”

and as long as the disciples of herr goebbles abuse the airwaves you’ll hear the sickening, never-ending cacophany of liberals calling everyone else morons.

He can fly a fighter jet. Gosh, what a dummie.

Apparently a new idea for skills that make him able to be the POTUS and leader of the free world.

Obama will need these skills so the DNC can tell him how to LEAD the country today.

Oh very good Barry. You email all by yourself.

And using google to look up left wing blogs for new policy ideas? Such a smart little man Barack Obama.

and as long as the disciples of herr goebbles abuse the airwaves

LOL It's truly amazing, I keep hearing this one radio host, she LOVES Obama,but she keeps claiming her mind isn't made up so she can feign non-partisanship. I remember when Sarah Palin was introduced, and this fool's first reaction was to call Palin's family white trash. Yes, so objective.

Absolutely right.

All Americans have to do is look closely at the "O" to see what lies behind it.

But how stupid is it for the Obama campaign to claim that McCain is unqualified to be president because he can’t grasp cyber-security issues based on the fact he has never sent an email when the McCain campaign can just as easily say Obama can’t understand first order national security issues because he’s never fired a rife, flown a plane, commanded men in battle, or faced an enemy? I mean which prepares someone to be commander in chief better, hitting “send” on AOL or fighting a war?

Obama is unfit for command.

Why can’t McCain e-mail? Boston Globe explained it in 2000; Update: So did Forbes

posted at 7:15 pm on September 12, 2008 by Ed Morrissey Send to a Friend | printer-friendly

posted at 7:15 pm on September 12, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
Send to a Friend | printer-friendly