Both of my 70+ grandmothers can use computers and the internet. The one learned working for the IRS, but the other learned well into her 60’s for her own enjoyment. I believe a lot of seniors have done the same. It certainly does show a lack of curiosity to not be familiar with the basics of computers and the internet. It’s not like it’s that new either. Email has been popular for over a decade, and the fact John McCain has never stopped and said “Hey, show me how to do that.” does reflect negatively on him.

—where all communication and information has to be filtered through staffers—has actually made fluency more difficult to achieve (or at least less necessary).

It’s like McCain’s secret selling point is that he’ll come to the White House pre-packaged in his own reality bubble.

SpotWeld is right—we’ve had a 7-year object lesson on what happens when folks come pre-packaged in their own reality bubbles. I think it’s even more incumbent on folks who have to sift through piles of conflicting information as part of their jobs to master the basic tools of research themselves.

I think this is the fatal flaw:

Over the past 10 years, most adult Americans have encountered and explored computers primarily in the workplace

Ten years ago, you might have been able to say this was true. But the reason this is a big deal is that “over the past 10 years” it isn’t true any more. The Web is the ubiquitous method of buying stuff, making travel arrangements, getting government information, etc., and while computers are used in a large portion of jobs (not counting dedicated point-of-sale systems and stuff, which aren’t a personal computer/Internet experience in any meaningful sense), there are a lot where they still aren’t, and I would bet that “most adults” now have their first real experience with computers and the Internet at home or at a public-access location like a library. In this context, an older person having no understanding of it is considered understandable, but still unfortunate.

Romano’s response reinforces what I thought from the start was the real story of “McCain doesn’t do computers”—not that he’s old, but that he’s the kind of pointy-haired boss who has his assistant print out his emails for him to read and type up his responses—why bother to learn all that peon stuff when you can just make other people do it for you?

at my office, you can’t get above the rank of “no corporate title” without being issued a blackberry and expected to use it a ridiculous amount. There’s no excuse for being out of contact with the office if there’s an emergency unless you’re on planned leave in a cell-dead zone (like backpacking the adirondacs or some such).

That McCain wouldn’t understand the importance of the quick three sentence reply that all senior managment I know have mastered makes me wonder just how heavily his staff has insulated him. Does he also believe the internet is like a series of tubes?

I don’t understand how it’s acceptable to give him a pass on standard working knowledge. He couldn’t get a job doing anything else in a corporate environment if he refused to deal with the intricacies of e-mail communication and scheduling. Why should we expect less from the highest public office than from Joe in the mailroom??

he ability to communicate and find information on the Internet has gradually become a required skill. But McCain’s job in the U.S. Senate—where all communication and information has to be filtered through staffers—has actually made fluency more difficult to achieve (or at least less necessary).

And yet, somehow, John Kerry (a senator from McCain’s generation) manages to find use for a Blackberry.

And does this mean we won’t be getting the “what’s on McCain’s IPod” questions from the press this campaign?

This shows an extraordinary lack of curiousity about the world on the part of McCain. . .

rea is on the right track. This is just a symptom of the fact that McCain is a really stupid man. And that was before he began showing obvious signs of dementia.

You’d have thought after the last 7 years there’d be hardly anybody who would want to repeat the experiment of putting a complete moron in the White House…

Shorter Andrew Romano;
We do not need to understand the internet, We have courtesans who do it for Us.

But-but-but I heard that st. bbq was learning to do a google so it’s all good, right?

The John McCain campaign has their own YouTube channel with 219 videos posted to date!

http://www.youtube.com/user/johnmccaindotcom?ob=4

Here’s a fave:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Zy50Dy6Zk

Yeah, that’s a pretty amazing willful misreading. Bush actually said “I don’t email, because of the different record requests that can happen to a president.” But even if you can’t be bothered to check the original sources for your statement, how clueless do you have to be to believe that you can have an entire government that heavily uses secure electronic communications, including the military and intelligence, but the president’s personal communications are so important and so hard to secure that the only choice is for him to not use email at all, even for non-secure matters (because phone calls are so much easier to secure, of course—not.)

That’s BS. My mom is a homemaker and a complete technophobe (seriously, we have to re-explain the remote control to her every time we come back from vacation), and even SHE is getting pretty darned computer literate. She uses email, makes spreadsheets for budgets, surfs Amazon, and loves the Google. She manages the online finances (online banking, etc.) without any trouble at all. Does John McCain not have finances, bills, shopping to do, or friends to communicate with? Or is he - gasp - ELITIST?

A friend of mine in Arkansas is friends with the Clintons. The last I heard (as of a year or two ago), Bill doesn’t really use e-mail, preferring the phone. (Granted, when he took office in ‘93, e-mail wasn’t yet ubiquitous, and then he was wrapped in the presidential bubble for eight years.) So I’m not sure McCain’s computer illiteracy is as appalling as you’re all making it out to be. I imagine McCain doesn’t need to do anything like make travel arrangements, shop for stuff, or set up bill payments online—his wife has a gazillion dollars, so presumably they have staff to manage all those tasks. I wonder how many older senators and how many older non-corporate millionaires are any more computer-literate than McCain.

(Note: This is in no way, shape, or form to be deemed any sort of an endorsement or positive opinion of McCain.)

Well, yes, it’s possible, and it’s not necessarily a slight on McCain, but the question remains…is it WISE to have a President like this?

I imagine McCain doesn’t need to do anything like make travel arrangements, shop for stuff, or set up bill payments online—his wife has a gazillion dollars, so presumably they have staff to manage all those tasks.

Then again, FDR came from money, so I’m pretty sure he and Eleanor had “people” for everything people in the 30’s and 40’s used radio for.  They could go to the theatre any time they wanted.  Their staff did most of the shopping so they wouldn’t have needed to be advertised to.  They got most of their news from the horse’s mouth.

And yet amazingly enough, I bet FDR knew what a radio was, how to use one, etc.

MikeEss: Hey, I have Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller on my iPod. There is nothing wrong with big band jazz.

McCain’s lack of computer skills reminds us that we need to know our place in the scheme of things.  Those who rule don’t have to know how to do things.  They can always hire people to do that.  Thus it is so in the elitist world of St. John of the POW.

I imagine McCain doesn’t need to do anything like make travel arrangements, shop for stuff, or set up bill payments online—his wife has a gazillion dollars, so presumably they have staff to manage all those tasks.

Again, illustrating as someone noted above, that St. McSame lives in a bubble, totally removed from real life.  Should he be elected, perhaps we could dub him Bubble-Boy, The Sequel.

It’s worth noting that your average, so-called, welfare mother probably has more computer knowledge than McSame.  Nowadays, many state and federal agencies provide access to services online.  Here in Albuquerque, the local library lets you get a “computer card” for a couple of bucks, allowing you to use their computers and go online.  I reckon a lot of the folks who use the libraries’ computers, do so to access information on their social security and other benefits.

“ The last I heard (as of a year or two ago), Bill doesn’t really use e-mail, preferring the phone. ”

That seems quite in character.  Thing is, I have trouble believing that he needs staffers or family to get him online and point him to one or two pre-selected sites.  Granted, I don’t know the man, but he just seems like the kind of fellow who can send email and use a browser by himself.

Seriously, my dad runs around online selling stuff on e-bay, emailing me articles, and commenting on various nytimes blogs, and he’s not quite a decade younger than McCain, and just (afaik) has never been much of a tech-y bandwagon-jumping early-adopterish sort at all - I mean, we’re talking about a man who hung on to a ‘70s Dodge Dart until the mid-late 90s, just because.

the only Republican President who could seem even remotely bright was GHW Bush,

The man who was completely amazed by a demonstration of a supermarket scanner?

What troubles me about McCain is not so much his lack of knowledge about the Internet, so much as his lack of curiousity about it, and his attitude that it’s not worth his time to find out. He seems willfully ignorant on the subject, and almost proud about that. Gee, no curiosity, no time for subjects that don’t interest him, no tolerance for people who disagree with him—hmm, this all seems so familiar, somehow….