Letters posted here are associated with the following article:

114
Letters
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 12:00 AM

John McCain, Internet dunce

Why the Arizona senator, who can barely Google, is not the chief that an increasingly technological world requires.

The letters thread is now closed.

View:
Thursday, August 14, 2008 10:24 AM

Not Qualified

I work in a town hall. The only jobs we could line up for Mr. McCain would be starter at the golf course or maybe shelving books at the library. Any of our jobs in town hall, even administrative assistants, require computer expertise.

Thursday, August 14, 2008 11:01 AM

@Klytus and maureenodonnell, what's on heads and what's in them

Klytus -

The headgear in question was called a fez in Turkey in reference to the red dye that was associated with the city of Fez. Tarboosh is the Egyptian Arabic term. Is a chapeau different from a hat?

The main point is not what's on anyone's head but what's in it. The important issue is that McCain's ignorance of computers is a sign that he's seriously out of touch with modern technology. How is it irrelevant to his fitness to be president?

What if 2000 years ago there was an illiterate leader who didn't really understand how others could communicate by writing?

Of course, McCain's ignorance includes not knowing the difference between Sunnis and Shi'ites and therefore not able to understand anything about Iran or Iraq or al Qaeda or Afghanistan or Pakistan, just for starters.

I'm still waiting for someone, anyone, to explain exactly what McCain's "foreign policy experience" consists of.

Thursday, August 14, 2008 03:30 PM

leadership or ??

Do you want leadership or a computer geek to lead our country? Most of us over 35's struggle with technology-- it is a tool not a way of life and certainly not a requirement to lead the USA.

Thursday, August 14, 2008 03:45 PM

Huh???

"Most of us over 35's struggle with technology..."

Speak for yourself.

Thursday, August 14, 2008 03:46 PM

@starrs

Too true

It's a tool.

But so too

Are you

Fool.

Thursday, August 14, 2008 06:47 PM

Don't know how to use the Internet

If he is Internet illiterate, then it is a mark against the candidacy of John McCain.

But there are so many other more important reasons that McCain is not the chief that the world requires.

We need a chief who is serious about admitting mistakes, apologizing, and setting the nation on the path toward making amends.

The USA is responsible for so much harm around the world. So many people have been hurt. Whole societies have been harmed. Even the planet itself suffers under the load of consumption and waste that is part of a culture propagated from the USA.

We can do better. We can create a society that doesn't do harm to itself or to the world.

Friday, August 15, 2008 06:01 AM

Just the kind of President I want leading us further into the 21st Century

My mom is almost 70 and she's emailing and using a computer. That Pew statistic quoted in the article is extremely damning; 3/4 of McCain's own demographic - the "old white-haired dudes" as Paris says in her campaign ad - do so much more than McCain can do.

Can he find the ON button on a computer?

It's time to push the OFF button on his campaign.

Friday, August 15, 2008 02:36 PM

McCain's policy of "These things will sort themselves out..."

...is beyond mistaken, it is dangerous. This country faces serious privacy and data collection concerns that are not problems in other countries which choose to protect their individual citizens over their corporations.

I'm not advocating that the US should effectively censor the internet, or should completely ban data collection, but there needs to be balance. A president who is likely to veto (or at the very least, be skeptical of) a law that might limit some telecom corporations' rights simply because he doesn't get it? Because its a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, gobbledygook? That's frightening.

PS McCain's "meh, I'm old" argument is weak. My father is 69 years old and trained/worked on the first computer developed by the US Air Force, and went on to IBM thereafter. Hell, my 86 year old grandmother is a downright expert on searching for zany internet videos. The internet's not going anywhere. Educate yourself McCain, you can't make your interns do everything for you.

Most Active Letters Threads

509

Everybody hates mommy

We're "stroller Nazis." We're whiny "breeders." Why is there so much contempt for mothers these days?
374

Rule-of-law extremism engulfs primitive Eastern Europe

Why would the new President of Lithuania demand investigations of CIA black sites in her country?
295

The extreme secrecy of the federal courts

Judges are not only permitted, but required, to conceal anything the government declares to be secret.
94

Explaining ClimateGate: A history of distrust

Asking researchers to delete e-mails after receiving an FOI request is never a good idea. So why did it happen?
80

"Sons of Anarchy": Badass or just bad?

FX's biker drama makes heroes out of swaggering, hard-living thugs, but don't ride into the sunset with this bunch

View all »

Letters Help

Currently in Salon