Saturday, July 12, 2008

"I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself."

Below are selected passages and quotes from an interview by Adam Nagourney and Michael Cooper with John McCain in today's New York Times.
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"He [McCain] said, ruefully, that he had not mastered how to use the Internet and relied on his wife and aides like Mark Salter, a senior adviser, and Brooke Buchanan, his press secretary, to get him online to read newspapers (though he prefers reading those the old-fashioned way) and political Web sites and blogs.


“They go on for me,” he said. “I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.”

"Asked which blogs he read, he said: “Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously. Everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge. Sometimes I look at Politico. Sometimes RealPolitics.”


“I don’t e-mail, I’ve never felt the particular need to e-mail,” Mr. McCain said.

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Where does one start when commenting on this?

Can one be a functional Senator without knowing how "to get online?"

Would one think that someone desiring, for many years, to be elected President of the US might have heard of the Internet and been curious enough to perhaps check it out once or twice during the past two decades?

Aren't fighter pilots kind of by nature "technical guys?" Don't they have to be ultra-comfortable with technology and the human interface therewith to fly those super-tech machines?

And, once logged on, why does he need others to "show" him Drudge & Co.?

How many other members of Congress don't know how to log onto the Internet; how many don't use e-mail?

What the hell is going on here!?!

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