computers

I thought techies of the left were a bit self-absorbed three months ago when they proclaimed John McCain unqualified for the presidency because he doesn't use a computer regularly. Now Barack Obama is looking downright foolish for having taken his cues from them.

The right side of the blogosphere is abuzz with criticism of Obama for creating an attack ad that ridicules McCain for figuratively being stuck in 1982, the year he was first elected to Congress. "He admits he still doesn't know how to use a computer," the ad says. "He can't send an e-mail."

The ad echoed the criticism that surfaced at the Personal Democracy Forum in June. Conference organizer Micah Sifry elevated the debate over McCain's tech credentials to the status of "breaking news" with a headline that mocked a McCain staffer for saying "McCain Is Aware Of The Internet."

PDF's sister site, techPresident, followed up with a poll asking the question that only geeks would think is on the edge of every voter's tongue: "Does a connected world need a connected [president of the United States]?" The "yes" response was a predictably high 61 percent, but the high-tech outrage against McCain never made it into the mainstream.

Until Obama decided to cast his own vote against McCain's technological shortcomings, that is. Now plenty of people are talking about whether it matters that McCain uses a computer regularly -- and the tide is decidely against the netroots/Obama view.

Even the liberal blog The Plank asked, "Which voters exactly are going to be outraged by the fact that McCain doesn't know how to use a computer?"

Promoted by Patrick.

I live and breathe the Internet and computers. Part of my job at Eyeblast TV is to convince conservatives that the Internet is the present and future marketplace for ideas in this information age. For more than two years, I wrote a blog about the impact of political blogs -- you can't get much more invested in all things online than that.

But the notion that the next president can't lead this country without knowing his way around a computer --  being spread by geeks on the left who will find any excuse to attack John McCain -- is ridiculous. The leader of the free world doesn't do diplomacy via e-mail or IM; he doesn't blog executive orders; and he doesn't negotiate with lawmakers in bytes and pixels.

It's true that the next president needs to understand computers and the Internet if he wants to communicate effectively in the modern world -- just as FDR understood and mastered radio and Ronald Reagan understood and mastered television. But it's not a prerequisite for doing the actual work of the presidency. Maybe some day but not now.

The next president's most important role -- every president's most important role -- will be to serve as commander-in-chief. It's far more important that he actually know something about the military than about the mouse on his desk.