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• Wednesday, August 13, 2008 08:15 AM

  A good deal of this commentary misses the point

  Nobody cares if McCain actually spends time surfing, and nobody expects (and few would want) a President Obama to spend any time surfing, pounding out emails, texting, or whatever.

  I expect the next president to understand how devasting nuclear bombs can be, but that doesn't mean I expect him to spend all day dropping nukes. Understanding the logic and potential impact of technology or nukes does not imply constantly using that technology, or nukes. To suggest otherwise is silly.

  Let's try an admittedly strained analogy:

  McCain uses the post office, Obama the internet. (Let's assume that both are communicating with the DCI and/or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs).

  The post office is a centralized, bureaucracy that can be easily targetted for cuts, job loses, etc. to achieve a policy goal.

  The internet is a distributed network that resists traditional attempts to govern it (or influence it). Bringing post office management/governance strategies to the internet would be silly. One has to understand and adapt to the underlying logic of the internet in order to get from it what you want (e.g., in the case of the president, let's say what he will want is security and prosperity).

  Still with me?

  OK.

  The post office is a traditional nation-state with an identifiable head and infrastructure that can be targetted, and even attacked, to protect the US national interest.

  Al Qaeda is a distributed network of semi-autonomous cells that can't be targetted in the traditional way. (I can't imagine how this can be disputed, as even President Bush has said this, and military experts tend to agree.)

  Put simply, McCain's technological shortcomings have less to do with Google, texting, and banging out emails than it does with a serious, and dangerous, failure to appreciate the nature of the challenges in the 21st century. McCain is 20 years behind the low-level operatives of "America's enemies." Is that a good idea. Would you want a Commander-in-Chief who relied on single shot rifles 20 years about his enemies started using machine guns? I'll admit that I never went to West Point (I wish I did!), but I do understand that "Know your enemy" is one of the ironclad rules of war. If I am mistaken about this, and "Be ignorant of your enemies" is actually a better strategy, I would be happy to be corrected by a military strategist.

  To make clear how important this is for national security, and how weak McCain really is on this, the Obama campaign could just check off all of the "geeky" technology used by the 9/11 hijackers (e.g., internet, cell phones, texts, etc.).

  Didn't the 9/11 commission say that part of the failure of the US intelligence community was "a failure of imagination." McCain proudly admits that he has no interest in avoiding this particular danger (i.e., lack of imagination and understanding), thus proving that when he declares that he knows how to win wars he means wars of the pre- 9/11 world.

  McCain will make us less safe. Some Dems need to put it that plainly.

  —whatobamashouldsay Read whatobamashouldsay's other letters
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