Barack Obama put out an “attack” ad that should be pulled immediately. Not only because it is insensitive and wrong; because it is stupid. It is also the wimpiest “attack” ad ever produced and shown, and everyone associated with it should be fired.
That being said, it is also insensitive and wrong. The ad was meant to demean John McCain’s lack of internet expertise, thereby casting him as “out of touch” with the approximately 72.5% of American internet users. If that was the only problem, it would still be a big one since McCain doesn’t have to personally operate a computer to have access to it’s resources.
But that’s not the only problem, not by a long shot. Those aforementioned internet users will be Obama’s undoing, even the ones who don’t necessarily support McCain. As it stands now, the political blogosphere is comprised of two main factions, those who hate Obama and those who don’t. No more Republican vs. Democrat or left vs. right, it has now come down to pro-Obama or anti-Obama. Period.
Many anti-Obama websites (too many to count, actually) have pointed out that John McCain’s war injuries prevent him from using a keyboard. They point to a March 4, 2000 Boston.com article about McCain’s loyalty, that has this little gem buried near the end:
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.
Then, there’s this New York Times piece where McCain explains his internet relationship:
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.
Mr. McCain: I use the Blackberry, but I don’t e-mail, I’ve never felt the particular need to e-mail. I read e-mails all the time, but the communications that I have with my friends and staff are oral and done with my cell phone. I have the luxury of being in contact with them literally all the time. We now have a phone on the plane that is usable on the plane, so I just never really felt a need to do it. But I do – could I just say, really – I understand the impact of blogs on American politics today and political campaigns. I understand that. And I understand that something appears on one blog, can ricochet all around and get into the evening news, the front page of The New York Times. So, I do pay attention to the blogs. And I am not in any way unappreciative of the impact that they have on entire campaigns and world opinion.
Then there’s this Feb. 11,2000 article I found in Slate Magazine that puts the lie to the whole “internet dunce thing.”
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. But McCain’s job as chairman of the Senate commerce committee forced him to learn about the Internet early on, and young Web entrepreneurs such as Jerry Yang and Jeff Bezos fascinate him. Well before he announced his exploratory committee, McCain had assimilated the notion that the Web could be vital to the kind of insurgent, anti-establishment campaign he wanted to run. In December 1998, he sent his longtime political aide Wes Gullett to Minnesota to study Jesse Ventura’s successful gubernatorial campaign, which was the first to use the Web in an effective and innovative way. “Wes went up to Minnesota and talked to Ventura’s people,” McCain told reporters on the Straight Talk Express yesterday. “That’s really where we got the idea.”
Most of these anti-Obama bloggers come to the conclusion that Team Obama “elitism” is the cause of it’s latest miscalculation, but I beg to differ. Sure, they’re elitist, clueless and more than a little stupid, but that’s not how they got into this mess. The simple Google search so many people recommend as a solution-in-hindsight would not have worked. In fact, such a search just might have been the tour guide down this particularly unfortunate garden path.
Site after Google site mocks McCain’s lack of internet savvy. Condescending, rude pro-Obama bloggers paint him as an out-of-touch dinosaur unfit to lead America in the 21st century. Even the “ladies” on The View tried that tack this morning. Didn’t really work, McCain said if he needed help using technology to reach out to young people, he’d ask his kids. Besides, the Obama ad was out by the time the show aired, anyway.
You’d think that since Google is one of Obama’s biggest donors, they could have pulled his coat about the huge pile he was creating for himself to step in with both feet. I mean, even though you would have had to search pretty hard to find these debunking stories on Google before the anti-Obama bloggers responded (which leads a reasonable person to consider the possibility of a clever setup by the Straight Talk Express) a well-timed phone call from Camp O to Mountain View should have done it. Too bad nobody thought of it. Like the lipstick/pig/hockey mom flap, whether they intended to be viciously bitchy or not doesn’t matter at all. They deserve to go down because they should have known better.
And these are the arrogant guys?
Let the countdown begin. 5-4-3-2…
PUMA
Just Say No Deal
