[Obama spokesman Dan] Pfeiffer said. "It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail."Jonah Goldberg at The Corner on National Review discussing this foolish advertisement by Barack Obama.
Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "extraordinary." The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country. From the Boston Globe (March 4, 2000):
McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.
There is plenty of evidence in the Goldberg post that McCain does use the internet but because of his injuries his wife does the typing for him. He uses the internet with the mouse.
What makes it really bad is that when you attack a man for not using the internet or being able to send an Email because of injuries he sustained in the service of the country couldn't you at least spend 5 minutes on Google for the real story like many bloggers have done? Who looks the fool now, Barack!
I hate to do this, but alas, not all is lost for team Obama. Today is a perfect time for Obama’s own Sister Soulja moment. He could order that computer ad pulled, apologize directly for having placed it.
Considering how foolish and hateful it makes him seem and how much it distracts from the message in the second half it was a tactical mistake as well as a strategic mistake.
Reclaim the mantle of change and ‘new politics’ and only put ads on that proclaim what he will do. If he does it now he may be early enough to make McCains ads look petty if Obama never responds with anything but positive, “I will,” messages.
He would be locked in though — no negative replies at all.
That would be as bold a move as Palin was for McCain — for that reason he wont do it. He can’t face the screaming of the left and media. The critters at Kos, DU, and the other fever swamps of the left have been demanding that Obama hit back and hit hard.
The flailing by team Obama is really beginning to show. It's time a grown up stepped in to run that thing. Remember, this is what he considers executive experience that qualifies him to be President.
DKK
Update: Ace notes that Forbes Magazine noted McCain’s disability in 2000, too:
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.
