Why Doesn't McCain Use a Computer? [Explains McCain's War Injuries]

abcnews ^ | Jake Tapper

[flyfree]

Assuredly McCain isn't comfortable talking about this -- and the McCain campaign discouraged me from writing about this -- but the reason the aged Arizonan doesn't use a computer or send email is because of his war wounds.

I realize some of the nastier liberals in the blogosphere will see this as McCain once again "playing the POW card," but it's simply a fact: typing on a regular keyboard for any sustained period of time bothers McCain physically.

He can type, he occasionally does type, but in general the injuries he sustained as a POW -- ones that make it impossible for him to raise his arms high enough to comb his hair -- mean that small tasks make his shoulders ache, so he tries to avoid any repetitive exercise.

Again, it's not that he can't type, he just by habit avoids when he can repetitive exercise involving his arms. He does if he has to, as with handshaking or autographs.

[anymouse]

Ping for a hero - a zing for the zero.

[Mount Athos]

Jake Tapper is feeling pretty guilty after extensively quoting a code pinker at a forum of supposedly independent undecided voters

[grey_whiskers]

Next question Jake.

After all the furor over our 'mistreatment' of captives at Club Gitmo...where is the press's indignation over literal, deliberate, systematic torture of AMERICAN POWs.

And you're still wondering why you have lost the hearts and minds of Middle America?

Cheers!

[WilliamReading]

I don’t think that sort of language is called for. Are we no better than the left-wing bloggers?

ABC, like all news organizations, has good days and bad days. Jake Tapper, though left of center, is certainly one of the fairest journalists out there. Bravo, Jake!

[Twinkie]

Truth be known, I’ll bet Barry uses the “hunt & peck” method of typing. Of course, it gets the job done, and most men I know think touch typing is a sissy method. (Who does Barry “e-mail” with anyway? Alinsky, Ayers, Wright, Rezko, Chicago machine “friends”, hacks in Alaska hunting dirt on Palin?)

What did HE do SPECIFICALLY as a “community organizer”? Name names, name projects specifically and what became of them. NOW, WE want to know something besides the nebulous platitudes about Barry that the media dares not question.

[bikerman]

Since when is keyboard operation a qualification for running for President?

[Carl LaFong]

I tried to post a comment on the YouTube video of this ad, explaining about McCain’s arm/hand disabilities.Needless to say, it never made the light of day due to the little snot leftist censors working for the YouTube/Google empire.

[stylin19a]

Tapper is late to the party. The problem with these continuing articles of explanation is, they continue to subliminally malign John McCain's health & age.

[SkyDancer]

Regarding FDR - why was the media so very careful not to show FDR in a wheelchair or when he stood not to show his braces.

So now the media is saying McCain is playing the POW card?

How many times has that Obama-bin-Bambi played the race card.

The only bad thing about this election is we’re going to get four more years of bashing the president and now VP ... we’ve had eight years of President Bush bashing ... but then it’s better than four years of >gag me< Obama praise.

[CMailBag]

“What did HE do SPECIFICALLY as a “community organizer”?”

I heard that he was unionizing the panhandlers.

[tongass kid]

We forget that Al Gore invented the Internet and will not let John use it.

[Polybius]

I tried to post a comment on the YouTube video of this ad, explaining about McCain’s arm/hand disabilities.Needless to say, it never made the light of day due to the little snot leftist censors working for the YouTube/Google empire.

Copy the following link (http://www.forbes.com/asap/2000/0529/053_print.html) and quote from Forbes.com.

Note its original date: May 29, 2000

Paste it all over the Internet.

Forbes.com .... May 29, 2000 ...... "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."

[madinmadtown]

I had the same experience with youtube.

[Miss Didi]

Karl Rove explained this to Chris Wallace this morning in his segment on both sides going too far with their campaign ads. Huh? Am I the only one outraged by this???

[EEDUDE]

Exactly.

I’d rather have the CIC THINKING about things rather than mastering the intricacies of Windows Vista.

That was a truly asinine thing to bring up.

[Caipirabob]

[alecqss]

Stephen Hawking has almost zero neuromuscular control and still uses a computer.

And McCain uses it, too.

The difference is that for McCain it is not absolutely mandatory as for Hawking, whose everyday life depends on it - no matter how uncomfortable he feels. McCain can dictate his emails. He also does them once in awhile. BTW, Forbes Magazine a few years ago called McCain one of the technology savviest Senators...