By: The Grey Havens Published On: 6/25/2008 2:55:52 AM
Move over "All your base are belong to us", there's a new internet super-meme in town. Yes, that's right, there's a new ubiquitous quote floating around the internet and you'll likely be hearing it from now until your cell phone embedded grandchildren vaporize the ashes of your chriogenically preserved 800 year old consciousness to the new mars colonies.
Mark Soohoo, his deputy e-campaign director, drew guffaws at an Internet conference in New York when he tried to dig his candidate out of a techno black hole.
"It's a mistake to assume John McCain has no knowledge of this," Mr. Soohoo said during a panel discussion with the Internet strategists of some other presidential campaigns.
"You don't necessarily have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country," he said.
Tracy Russo, who worked for John Edwards, a Democrat and former presidential candidate, as an Internet strategist who was on the same panel, erupted at this response. "You actually do," she said incredulously, suggesting that a person gains a certain frame of reference from being online.
"John McCain is aware of the Internet," Mr. Soohoo said. "This is a man who has a very long history of understanding on a range of issues."
Andrew Rasiej, a Democrat and founder and executive producer of the Personal Democracy Forum, which was holding the conference, said later that Mr. McCain's lack of familiarity with computers and the Internet "shows he doesn't understand how the world works and that he doesn't understand what it would mean to be president."
Apparently he's never actually used the internet. You'll recall that John McCain doesn't know how to use a computer. He is, however, "aware" of it.
Clearly, this is the guy we want leading America into the 21st Century, because if the last 8 years have taught us anything, it's that clueless is the best qualification for Commander-in-Chief.
Classic. I can't wait for the new remixes on youTube. They're probably up already, but I seem to have forgotten how to use the google.
What does it say about the Republicans that this never came up during their primaries?
Those darn Inter-Tubes (TurnPWBlue - 6/25/2008 8:21:16 AM)
It didn't come up because this is what they think it means to be "aware" of the Internet:
Out of touch (Quizzical - 6/25/2008 9:15:47 AM)
It's like the meme of George H. W. Bush not knowing the price of a gallon of milk or not having ever seen bar code scanners in the supermarket. Or W not knowing anything about foreign policy because he didn't know the name of the President of Pakistan. Oh wait, that turned out to be important . . . .
The Washington Post has had a great series recently on the battle for the hearts and minds in the (I'm shuddering as I type this, believe me) "War on Terror." I'm looking for a link right now so you all can read it, but the gist of it is that America has wasted billions of dollars on creating a propaganda television station that no one watches because it's boring and out-of-touch with the people it's trying to persuade, while Al Qaeda has developed an impenetrable propaganda movement that allows top leaders to be visible with minimal security risk, using--you guess it--the Internet. And they succeeded in this task largely because the Federal Gov't didn't consider disrupting AQ's online network to be a significant priority compared to, say, providing funding to Wyoming so their state police can prevent a possible terrorist attack in the middle of no where.
Or at least we didn't think it'd be important until they'd already established and secured their networks.
I'm not expecting the next President to sit at his laptop in the Oval Office and decrypt Osama Bin Laden's emails, but we do need 21st Century leadership that is capable of understanding the evolving nature of the threat we face so that he's capable of making the right calls in terms of setting our priorities for aggressively combating terrorism. John McCain is clearly not that leader.
