Barack Obama's High-Tech Blunder

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?"

As it turns out, there is one huge mitigating factor in McCain's favor: He was tortued in Vietnam, and the permanent injuries he sustained make it painful for McCain to do certain tasks, including using a computer. Ironically, the supposedly high-tech Obama team would have known that if it had done a simple computer search.

Plus as I noted back in June, just because he doesn't personally use a computer on a regular basis doesn't mean McCain is a Luddite, a technophobe or clueless about the role of technology in society. In fact, he has played key roles on the tech policy front for years. High-tech Democrat Joe Trippi also credited McCain with the "first bold attempt to harness the power of the Internet" in politics.

Obama's team blundered big time with this petty and uninformed attack on McCain, and James Joyner of Outside The Beltway concisely explains why:

"Team Obama criticizes McCain for being unable to use the Internet and thus gives Team McCain: 1) an opportunity to not only point out again how much he suffered putting his Country First, but to make Obama look mean-spirited and insensitive for bringing up the point; and 2) the ability to demonstrate that he's not only not a moron about technical matters but actually beta-tested a model that Obama and others have used more successfully since."

Obama hasn't actually listened to the netroots much on substantive policy matters during the presidential campaign, and his flip-flops on issues like anti-terrorism surveillance (against it before he was for it) actually have aggravated liberal bloggers. But this play came straight from the netroots playbook.

That decision may leave Obama in even worse field position for the campaign's final drive.