Don't Know Yahoo From YouTube: Presidential candidates' info technology ignorance unacceptable

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Don't Know Their Yahoo From Their YouTube
By Garrett M. Graff
Sunday, December 2, 2007; Page B01

In Wednesday's CNN/YouTube debate, Sen. John McCain let slip a fairly stunning admission. The Arizona Republican assured viewers that he wouldn't need to lean on his vice president, George W. Bush-style, for national security expertise, but might "rely on a vice president" for help on less important issues such as "information technology, which is the future of this nation's economy." Hold it. Would we allow a serious presidential candidate to admit to knowing so little about any other key subject?

The problem goes far beyond McCain, who's usually rather tech-friendly. Search for Sen. Ted Stevens on Google, and one of the first results you get about the man who until this year was third in line for the presidency is his famously clueless characterization of the Internet as a "series of tubes." President Bush's similarly addled descriptions of the Web (he has referred to "the Google") have been pure gold for "Saturday Night Live." After Bush alluded during a 2004 presidential debate to rumors "on the, uh, Internets" about an Iraq war draft, Will Forte (who impersonates the president on the show) gleefully played Bush saying, "I think the problem here may be more of a question of getting rid of the bad Internets and keeping the good Internets. You know, 'cause I think we can all agree, there're just too many Internets."

In fact, technology shouldn't be such a laughing matter.

As a nation, we wouldn't tolerate such ignorance about any other area of policymaking. Would we be amused if it came out that Joe Biden, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wasn't clear about the difference between Shiites and Sunnis or couldn't find Sudan on a map? How about if Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate banking committee, wasn't entirely sure what the term "subprime mortgage" meant? You can be sure that if Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on the Senate homeland security committee, fumbled over what a "dirty bomb" is, pundits and pols on both sides of the aisle would have her head. So why is it so funny that the octogenarian Stevens, the top Republican senator on the committee that regulates the Web, doesn't know the difference between the Internet and an e-mail? (Some of this stuff is technical, but really now.)

Some presidential candidates -- you know, the ones always talking about ensuring that the United States can compete in a fast-moving, tech-savvy world -- seem to be getting a pass on technological literacy. Answering a campaign-trail question earlier this year, Mitt Romney, the former entrepreneur whose high-tech background should make him the best-informed candidate, didn't seem to know the difference between the video-sharing Web site YouTube (then the fourth most popular site in the world, according to Alexa.com) and MySpace, the social networking site (then ranked sixth). What if John Edwards had shown that he didn't know the difference between Indonesia, the fourth most populous country, and Pakistan, the sixth most populous? Or the difference between Chevron, No. 4 on the Fortune 500 list, and No. 6 General Electric? It would have been a huge gaffe, a multi-day story in which pundit after pundit decreed him unfit to lead the nation. Romney's similar faux pas didn't even muss his electoral hair.

So why is it that we blithely allow our leaders to be ignorant of the force that, probably more than any other, will drive and define the nation's economic success and reshape its society over the next 20 years?...

(Garrett M. Graff, an editor at large at Washingtonian magazine, was the first blogger admitted to a White House briefing. He is the author of "The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web and the Race for the White House.")

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001802.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[rufus dog]

1. Not what McCain said

Notice the guys use of quotes - McCain did NOT use the words less important!


In Wednesday's CNN/YouTube debate, Sen. John McCain let slip a fairly stunning admission. The Arizona Republican assured viewers that he wouldn't need to lean on his vice president, George W. Bush-style, for national security expertise, but might "rely on a vice president" for help on less important issues such as "information technology, which is the future of this nation's economy." Hold it. Would we allow a serious presidential candidate to admit to knowing so little about any other key subject?

[Berry Cool]

3. Wonder why the writer chose to characterize IT as "less important."

Especially in a context in which McCain was being chided for knowing so little about a "key subject."

I wonder what McCain's actual words were.

[rufus dog]

6. he basically said

that he would not need the support from a VP on Foreign issues because he unlike Bush is knowledgeable and experienced but in other areas where HE is less experienced he would rely on the VP for advice and he used IT as an example.

So McCain is admitting he is not the most knowledgeable in IT, and thought enough of that specific subject to use it as an example, and this fucking hack twists it to say McCain emphasized "less important." It is a bullshit tactic used by the Right and FAUX NEWS for years. And I don't like it any better when used on Repubs.

[ChazII]

2. analog generation vs digital generation n/t

[izquierdista]

4. I believe there was a candidate in 2000

who was asked if he knew who the leaders of foreign countries were, whether he had been out of the country, if he knew where certain countries were. He just brushed that aside as meaningless drivel to be left to subordinates and it didn't seem to harm his chances much.

[MindPilot]

5. What do you expect from people who believe the Earth is 6000 years old

and global climate change is a myth?