The latest gaffe by the Obama campaign is an ad/video.
An AP article quotes the ad:
“1982, John McCain goes to Washington,” an announcer says over chirpy elevator music. “Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn’t.
“He admits he still doesn’t know how to use a computer, can’t send an e-mail, still doesn’t understand the economy, and favors two hundred billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class”…
The Obama campaign insists that ad ridicules McCain, not for his age per se but for his long experience, implying he has no new ideas, and ridicules McCain for being out of touch, and uses the internet meme as a way to illustrate this.
Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said the campaign was not making an issue of the 72-year-old McCain’s age, but the time he’s spent in Washington.
“Our economy wouldn’t survive without the Internet, and cyber-security continues to represent one our most serious national security threats,” 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.”
McCain has said he relies on his wife and staff to work the computer for him and that he doesn’t use e-mail.
Fair enough. Here in Asia, the elderly are respected for their wisdom, but in the US, they are not. So when one wants to grab the youth vote, presumably ridiculing someone’s age is fine. It probably means he is less likely to get my husband Lolo’s vote, but Lolo is a life long Republican and probably wouldn’t vote for him anyway.
Bloggers however, instantly investigated the story, using a little tool known to many of us as a google search bar.
This secret tool, which apparently is unknown to the Mainstream Media and the Democratic National Committee, allowed bloggers to find out if there had been any news stories written about McCain’s internet ability. And the bad news for the Obama campaign is that they found out the real reason why McCain doesn’t do email.
At National Review’s the Corner, Jonah Goldberg, wrote:
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….
Whoops…..
It’s on Drudge, albeit low down on the side, since Drudge is mainly linking about Hurricane Ike.
The right wing blogosphere is having a “blogburst”, and Instapundit has links to other blogs covering the story, and links to an old Slate article about McCain’s 2000 campaign internet site and to a similar Forbes article from the year 2000 which explains why McCain made a remark that his wife does his emails:
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.
Way to go, fellahs.
Obama needs to take lessons from Joe Biden on what to do when his foot is firmly stuck in his mouth. Joe just shrugs, laughs sheepishly and says sorry; he then usually rephrases what he really meant to say…and all is forgiven. Given the number of gaffes that Joe makes, it’s amazing that he is still in politics: but people figure he didn’t really mean it because of the way he apologizes.
Obama, however, is brilliant. And one of the problem of brilliant people who know everything is that they don’t know how to back down when they are wrong or things come out wrong.
If Obama, when confronted with the Republicans saying that “lipstick on a pig” was an insult, had merely said: Sorry, I was just using an old saying and didn’t realize at the time it would be misinterpreted as an insult”, he’d be in the clear.
So one wonders how the Obama Campaign will try to wiggle out of this obvious gaffe…
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Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines. She writes about human rights in Africa at MakaipaBlog.
5 users commented in " First the lipstick, now mocking the disabled. "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackWait, you treat the Drudge Report as if it is a reliable source? McCain’s campaign has said that he is learning how to use a computer. If it was physically impossible for him to do so that wouldn’t be possible. The Boston Globe article is either wrong or exagerating.
No, I treat Forbes Magazine and the Boston Globe as reliable sources.
McCain has said himself that he does not know how to use the computer,and never said it was because of injuries. The fact he does not even understand the internet or computer is shocking for any generation, especially for a man that wants to lead the United States! Now we are suppose to feel bad for what he has said?
Nancy, as you have proven in the past you love to play the bleeding heart card! My question to you is do you find any foul play by John McCain’s ads? It would serve you well, to look into your beloved McCain campaign who has pushed the falsehood of Obama’s faith, stance on taxes, insulted his wife and mis represented a bill which was passed regarding young children being educated regarding boundries for would be sexual abuse.
Next on the agenda for McCain campaign: have Palin and her children cry over the fact that the media is interested in her previous experiences as a govenor and uncovering all her bad decisions- Ya let’s win the presidency by sympathy!!!
For the record McCain used the “lipstick on a pig” comment durring his own campaign.
The Obama’s comment was directed at McCain’s record not as a sexist slur, or to offend animals for that matter.
NEWSWEEK colleague Jonathan Alter asks an important question: if McCain’s war wounds are really to blame for his computer “illiteracy,” why didn’t anyone on the campaign say so? His report:
On June 16, I spoke at length with Mark Salter on the subject of McCain and the computer. He said McCain had a PC on his desk and often borrowed the BlackBerrys of others and was working at getting better on the computer. The point he was making was that McCain misspoke when he said he was “computer illiterate” in January in an interview with YahooNews. At no time did Salter say that McCain’s war wounds, which mostly prevent him from lifting his arms above his head, had any connection to his slowness at adapting to the computer. You can be sure that if this were a factor, Salter would have mentioned it.
When McCain returned from Vietnam, his service in the Navy required him to type reports. There is nothing in any of the medical records released by the McCain campaign that suggests in any way that McCain had trouble typing.
The McCain campaign should release any such records if they exist. Otherwise, McCain’s campaign should be asked why it would attempt to exploit the senator’s genuine suffering during the Vietnam War to protect McCain from an embarrassing charge related to his inexperience with computers.- Newsweek
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