McCain Sets 'Em Up, Knocks 'Em Down

Politics | Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 12:47:49 pm PDT

Maybe I’m cynical, but I can’t help suspecting that the Obama campaign was set up by John McCain’s self-deprecating statements about not “getting” the Internet. Here’s a Forbes article from 2000, and it’s clear that McCain is nowhere near as clueless as Obama would like to portray him: Forbes.com - Net Vs. Norm.

In certain ways, McCain was a natural Web candidate. Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee and regarded as the U.S. Senate’s savviest technologist, McCain is an inveterate devotee of email. His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. “She’s a whiz on the keyboard, and I’m so laborious,” McCain admits.

If it was a setup, Obama fell right into the trap.

(Hat tip: Jim Geraghty.)