Somehow I don't imagine that John McCain's comments in San Francisco yesterday are going to reassure anyone who's concerned that he's out of the loop technologically:
"I do understand the importance of the computer. I understand the importance of the blogs.... I am forcing myself -- let me put it this way, I am using the computer more and more every day.... It doesn't mean that I have to e-mail people. Now, I read e-mails," he added, saying his staff is "constantly showing them to me as the news breaks during the day."
The whole point of email, of course, is that you don't have to have staffers "show" it to you, but can access it yourself, unmediated, to see what discussions and debates are taking place within, say, your presidential campaign. Jon's suggestion that McCain's computer illiteracy contributes to the chaotic, everyone-talking-behind-one-another's-backs quality of the McCain organization is seeming more plausible all the time.
--Christopher Orr