McCain Admits He’s “Web Illiterate”
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More on McCain. Whatever your loyalties, suspend them for a minute to just listen to what McCain says about his lack of understanding of basic - and vital - tools for our century. In his own words, he’s “illiterate.” (And yes, the video is cheesy and a bit mean, but the real footage doesn’t lie.)
What has McCain been doing with his spare time over the last 20+ years? Hasn’t he been curious at all about this stuff? It’s like ignoring the telephone because morse code works just fine for your purposes.
If it’s not lack of curiosity, then what other logical explanations do we have? Lack of motivation to learn? Or fear of learning things that seem hard?
Whatever way you slice it, it’s not a comforting quality for a person who wants to steer us back on a good path into the 21st century.
If you like this post, please spread it: 
(But don't tag it "education." That will bury it.)
I’m no fan of either candidate, but I’m not going to hold this against McCain. I worked for some very high level executives that also did not answer their own email and I think they were more productive because of that.
As for surfing the internet, it’s not like the web is a fount of ACCURATE information. I see it more as a place to exchange views (which I’m sure McCain does more on a daily basis than someone surfing the net) and to buy things (I don’t think McCain is going on eBay either. Otherwise, tell me exactly what he should be getting off the net.
[Reply]
Louise
16 Jul 08 at 11:28 am
It’s not so much what he should be getting off of it than that he should understand its politics, economics, and educational value. How can he have an appreciation, for example, of arguments for Net Neutrality if he’s ignorant of the dynamics of this global (and so far democratic) communication system?
It’s much deeper than using eBay - and there IS a lot of accurate info on the web, as study after study shows, as well as INaccurate, biased, slanted, and politically selective misinformation in the mainstream media.
Don’t you think there’s a point here, Louise?
And for the record, while I think Obama is the stronger candidate for several reasons, I’m not sold on him either. He’s been worrisome lately.
[Reply]
Clay Burell
16 Jul 08 at 12:34 pm
Louise, the point isn’t for him to be on the net that often. The point is for him to have enough technical literacy to understand the medium. At the very least, he could learn enough to:
a) get online by himself
b) read a couple of popular blogs
c) visit some popular social networking sites
This is the kindof stuff he is going to be regulating (or not) if he is elected, so he should have an understanding of it. If someone has never used the net, they’re not going to understand the importance of net neutrality, etc.
Plus, I think the fact that he can’t get online speaks volumes about his intelligence, or lack thereof.
Arthus Ereas last blog post..McCain is an “illiterate”
[Reply]
Arthus Erea
16 Jul 08 at 12:37 pm
Hello, Clay,
While McCain cops pretty openly to his computer illiteracy, the person shilling his CD-based training program ain’t doing so great either.
Witness the “testimonial” at :55 where the person on-screen talks about how grateful she is to finally be mastering Word Perfect. Now, she’d be totally set if she could get Windows 3.1 to stop crashing.
Cheers,
Bill
[Reply]
Bill Fitzgerald
16 Jul 08 at 2:30 pm
[...] he mentions that the Internet is the basic support considering all of the posts going on concerning one of the presidential candidates. But, I [...]
Here Comes Everybody, but is Everybody Else Prepared? | A Piece of My Mind
16 Jul 08 at 3:10 pm
I am glad he admitted this. For one I lived in Arizona for a while and have never seen a person flop around so much. For another, he is now suspicious. There are going to be some big laws coming our way regarding the internet. Those in the know do know that. It is still the wild west here. I would rather have someone with an experience based opinion of what to do with the internet in office, right or wrong, than a person who will have to take advice from others on the subject. And I think a lot of people who see the internet as part of their lives feel the same way.
This is not a time where the three R’s are all you need for education. I see people today that are crippled by not having any knowledge of the net. It’s becoming a necessity. Those who don’t learn might as well be Amish. And a President who doesn’t know anything about the net will set us backwards.
Stephan Millers last blog post..The Importance of Knowing What You Want to Write
[Reply]
Stephan Miller
17 Jul 08 at 3:44 am
@Bill. Isn’t that hilarious? I can’t tell if the guy is joking and the whole “ad” is satire, or if he’s really hawking this medieval product seriously to the rubes who can’t know better.
@Arthus, thanks for dropping in. I noticed you posted about this too, and your points are more articulate than mine.
@Stephan: Word up.
[Reply]
Clay Burell
17 Jul 08 at 4:36 am
Though I personally believe that one must dip his/her own toe in the water to decide if it is hot or cold….if McCain (or anyone) has a staff who can give him verbal and memo updates of everything he “needs to know”, does he need to be out there to find it out himself?
(Analogy: When a member of Congress goes to Iraq for a “fact finding” tour to see what the war is “really like”, are they really seeing what the war is like anyway, or do they form false perceptions?)
Barrys last blog post..Rigor as Cerebral Weight Lifting
[Reply]
Barry
17 Jul 08 at 5:03 am
@Barrry, (nice to see you):
I don’t mean to get too partisan here, but a world leader who delegates knowledge of any vital aspect of the world - Iraq, the “intertubes” - is at the mercy of his advisors’ agendas and biases. Since administrations are (almost) always partisan, cabinets are too; and this means the advice a president gets is likely to be one-sided, according to the ideology of the cabinet.
Bush is known for letting his closest, insular bubble do his thinking for him, and look where that got us with Iraq, the economy, the deficit, the environment, world opinion, and a depressingly much longer list.
It’s not like the politics and the economics of the web are some minor issue (and I’m not necessarily trying to say you suggest as much, though honestly it does seem implied). Gutenberg and the printing press are small beans compared to this revolution, and it can be seriously derailed - like radio was when citizen radio was killed by legislation in the early 20th c. giving ownership of the airwaves to corporate media. Politicians who haven’t a) experienced, b) explored, and c) deeply reflected on this technological revolution are likely to see it as a minor issue, and sell its ownership to corporate interests - at the citizenry’s expense. You do follow Net Neutrality politics, don’t you? It’s an historically momentous struggle. What we take for granted online is at risk of going the same way as citizen radio.
Re: your analogy: do you think it’s a good one? Iraq is difficult to learn first-hand because any American walking its streets is a soon-to-be dead one. No such obstacles keep a person from simply making time to come to grips with the “book” of the third millennium (at least until it’s legislated into a mere advertisement or government-controlled reading space instead).
[Reply]
Clay Burell
17 Jul 08 at 5:22 am
McCain is going to win. F Obama
[Reply]
Dan
17 Oct 08 at 5:45 am
Dan,
The polls tend to disagree with you…
and your logic of “F Obama” hardly makes your opinion more respected.
[Reply]
Morgante Pell
17 Oct 08 at 6:24 am