For the same reason that any CEO in the nation should know how to use a computer. For the same reason that anyone in an any executive position should know how to use a computer. For the same reason that anyone with any sort of responsibility over a great many people in this modern world should know how to use a computer.
Because this is two-thousand-and-friggin’-8. Computers are important. Refusing to understand them and sloughing them off on subordinates to figure out is foolhardy at best and stupid at worst.
Seriously. You don’t care that he can’t figure how to friggin’ email? How is this one of his assets?
You’re not answering the question. What bad thing is more likely to happen if John McCain has his subordinates use the computer instead of him? Other than the shame he’ll bear from losing your admiration, what is the negative effect of this enormous character defect for which we all ought to prepare?
McCain not knowing how many houses he has does a better job of making him seem out of touch with the common voter. Not knowing how to check e-mail is incredibly trivial by comparison. It’s even below George H.W. Bush not knowing the price of a gallon of milk.
I will give you one major issue about this – becoming isolated and dependent upon whatever information your subordinates carry in and put on your desk in front of you. It is important to have independent access to a wide variety of viewpoints.
Though not, of course, if you don’t want to hear it anyway.
How about answering an email? How about getting updates on some national security issue? How about communicating with people? How about reading a simple document?
What is he going to do sit stock still behind the desk in the oval office like a dummy and have everything spoon-fed to him by his tech team?
You really don’t think the man and/or woman who runs the most powerful country on the planet, in this technological age, needs absolutely no computer skills?
I’m relatively certain if McCain wants to, he can still read a newspaper or watch television all by himself. The only thing I can think of that he’d miss by not being online would be the wonderfully reliable and rational world of blogs.
Seems a stretch. He still reads the newspaper, right? Watches the news, reads books? I’m not saying his being computer illiterate is a virtue. But it seems trivial from a practical perspective.
[Lame] Well, a Google search might have done a better job vetting his running mate. [/Lame]
Other than that, I rather doubt computer literacy would actually improve his ability to govern. Everyone making this point is right. But I feel like the ad is an attempt at a modern, more easily verified version of the “George H.W. Bush had never before seen an electronic scanner in a supermarket” rumor.
Remember Obama’s nomination speech, where his main line of attack on McCain opened with “Now, I don’t believe that Senator McCain doesn’t care what’s going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn’t know”? This is supporting that thesis more than anything else.
We don’t care that the potential President of the United States doesn’t know how to email. It harkens back to the days of, “I like Bush, because he seems like a guy I could have a beer with.”
When, in this country, did it become to cool to want a dumb president?
McCain not knowing how to open Outlook – making him a regular Joe-- is an asset , but Obama graduating from Harvard Law School – making him an elitist – is a detriment?
So now McCain isn’t capable of choosing what newspapers he gets? Give me a break. And I’m well aware of the worthlessness of various media outlets, but as far as getting other viewpoints goes they are other sources. What is he going to find online that he isn’t going to get from preexisting sources?
Seriously. Tell me why the president needs to be able to use the internet. You have yet to establish that and your emotional arguments are not cutting it.
True, but not knowing how many houses he has is not related to the job of the president. As you and Stratocaster have argued, a president could have aides dictate, read, or pull anything up on the internet or computers that he or she so desired. I don’t think anyone could make a credible argument (without at least having some firsthand White House experience) that computer skills were absolutely necessary for a president to have.
But the question why is McCain still computer illiterate is one that may reveal something about his character. Computer literacy may not be needed for a president, but given all the committee hearings, coordination, vote negotiations, and just day-to-day business that a senator must do, why hasn’t he asked an aide just to show him a few basic things? The Obama camp is essentially arguing that the fact that he seems to have remained in the dark about computers from at least 2000 until now indicates that McCain is stubborn, willfully ignorant in this area and refuses to adapt to changing times. And that these qualities may be true about more than just computers.