Barack Obama attacks John McCain as a computer illiterate

After a day of joint appearances and a respite from election ad wars in recognition of Sept. 11, Barack Obama and John McCain’s campaigns are back at it -- firing ads at one another and preparing for the final 50-plus days until Nov. 4.

No sooner had McCain released yet another ad defending Sarah Palin than Obama fired off a new attack on McCain, paired with a commercial in which Obama speaks to the camera urging "real change."

The one certain to grab most attention starts with a picture of a much younger McCain and says: "1982, John McCain goes to Washington. Things have changed in the last 26 years but McCain hasn't."

It proceeds to ridicule the Republican for his self-confessed inability to send e-mails and vague grasp of computers. And of course there is a picture of President Bush, looking a little goofy, standing next to McCain.

The two spots come as Obama campaign manager David Plouffe issued an e-mail in which he attacks McCain for having "shown that he is willing to go into the gutter to win this election."

"His campaign has become nothing but a series of smears, lies, and cynical attempts to distract from the issues that matter to the American people," Plouffe's statement says.

Obama's new ads will be airing in battleground states. To help pay for the airtime, Obama is returning to Beverly Hills on Tuesday.

He will be holding fund-raisers at Greystone Estate, at $28,500 per ticket, followed by dinner at the Regent Wilshire, $2,500 per plate. Headlining the event will be Barbra Streisand.

-- Dan Morain

Comments

[Michael Henry]

Mccain is shamelessly using suttle racial incindiary messages, to woo white voters who would otherwise be open to vote across racial lines. Make no mistake, his campaign is not just using the lipstick on a pig remark, and now the direspectful allegation of a black man disrespecting a white woman as just campaign attacks, It has racial connotones to it, yet the media would not call him on it but continues to report it.He claims to want to unite this nation however like the promise of George Bush If he is elected there will be chasm in this nation that hell will rejoice at. He promised a clean campaign void of the bitterness and rancour of times past and which he was a victim of. However he has employed the same individuals who were the authors and perpetrators of such despicable practices to now do the same nefarious acts. It is therefore obvious that he is not for change, only for his self promotion at any cost. Mccain is shamelessly using suttle racial incindiary messages, to woo white voters who would otherwise be open to vote across racial lines. Make no mistake his campaign is not just using the lipstick on a pig remark, and now the direspectful allegation of a black man disrespecting a white woman as just campaign attacks, It has racial connotones to it yet the media would not call him on it but continues to report it.He claims to want to unite this nation however like the promise of George Bush If he is elected there will be chasm in this nation that hell will rejoice at,

[McCain Can't Read This]

George Bush is computer illiterate too. It's as if the Republicans want some under-qualified puppet to stand in the oval office.
In 2008 electing a dwindling life-span dinosaur like John McCain to lead one of the world's highest technological countries is like putting a gorilla in a china store. Nothing good can come of it.

Electing a soccer mom who dreams of attacking nuclear armed countries would be a bad decision as well. Very bad.

[BJ]

OBAMA and NAPA VALLEY have one thing in common...

WHINE

[Michael]

I got to meet and shake John McCain's hand in 2002, and because of the way his arms were deformed during his stay in Hanoi, it was very awkward. I remember thinking at the time "how could he use a normal computer keyboard"? I have serious RA and have much less deformation in my wrists and find normal keyboards extremely painful, so I use an articulated one. Still not comfortable.

It's one of those questions perhaps Joe Biden could ask? He seemed pretty adept at pulling out his foot earlier this week, before it got stuck or did any damage.

[Dollerhide]

Won't learn how to use a computer? How ignorant!

Oh, wait...

"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."
-Boston Globe (March 4, 2000)

Pretty classy, Obama.

[basementfrog]

The Planned Parenthood ad turns a perverted attack on its head, asking why McCain objects to protecting toddlers.
"Every eight minutes a child is sexually abused. That's why Barack Obama supported legislation to teach children how to protect themselves," a female narrator says in it. "Now John McCain is twisting the facts and attacking Sen. Obama. Doesn't McCain want our children to protect themselves from sex offenders? Or after 26 years in Washington is he just another politician who'll say anything to get elected?"
Does McCain, like Tom DeLay, support child abuse? Why is he attacking legislation with the purpose of protecting our kids? Is the a ploy to protect his republican friends like Idaho senator Larry Craig?

What are McCain’s views on pedophilia?

BOOZE FOR KIDS

Barack Obama does not want to lower the legal drinking age from 21 to 18. John McCain is not so clear on whether he supports such a move.
McCain has routinely sought to steer clear of alcohol-related matters. His wife, Cindy, is the chairwoman of the Hensley & Co. beer distribution company. Phoenix-based Hensley is one of the largest Anheuser Busch Companies Inc. distributorships in the country.
McCain has routinely not voted on issues directly impacting Hensley and alcohol-related sectors during his time in Congress.

The Obama campaign said the Illinois senator does not support a lower legal drinking age.
MARRAIGE

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fiber by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam and to demonstrate his commitment to family values. The truth is somewhat different.

The first Mrs McCain casts is the mother to McCain’s three eldest children. Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965, was the woman McCain dreamed of in the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered and she suffered massive internal injuries, doctors werer forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

When John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self. ‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.’

Some of McCain’s acquaintances portray the politician as a self-centered womanizer who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons. McCain was then earning little more than $40,000 a year as a naval officer, while his new father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was a multi-millionaire who had impeccable political connections.
AND THE NEW WIFE

John McCain's powerful Washington, DC, lawyer, who secured a slap on the wrist for the Arizona Senator following the Keating Five scandal, was in close contact with federal investigators probing Cindy McCain's prescription drug abuse, throughout their nearly yearlong investigation, according to a new report Friday.

Although there was little doubt that McCain was misusing a medical-aid charity she ran in the early 1990s to obtain massive quantities of narcotic painkillers to feed her addiction, the Drug Enforcement Agency filed no federal charges against her. Instead, she was able to cut a deal that let her off the hook in exchange for completing a brief drug aversion program.

There is perhaps no one who can claim more credit for this auspicious outcome than John Dowd, an attorney with substantial clout in the nation's capital who came to McCain's aid after a former employee began telling the DEA what he knew about her drug problem.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Post_McCains_Keating_5_lawyer_pressured_0912.html

[mike]

This ad might backfire. There is a whole generation of ppl who aint computer literate if u insult them u lose them.

[a.m. young]

"MCCAIN'S SEVERE WAR INJURIES PREVENT HIM FROM COMBING HIS HAIR, TYPING ON A KEYBOARD, OR TYING HIS SHOES."

BOSTON GLOBE ON 3/4/2000

[dan johnson]

NICE AD from Obama. However, it might not go over as intended when they find out McCain is physically unable to type on a computer due to the severe injuries he suffered in Viet Nam. You can reference the Boston Globe's own article on 3/4/2000 to validate this as FACT. Wonder if Obama really meant to "mock" the physical limitations of a wounded war veteran??

[Art in PA]

I am sending the below email for my father-in-law who can not operate a computer or send an email but he is very irritated at Obama's latest ad and was personally offended.

The new ad from Obama ridiculing Senator McCain's inability to send an email or operate a computer: First, I'd like to see Obama fly an F102 fighter off of a carrier deck, then land it. Secondly, I am among many seniors who also can not send an email or operate a computer ... guess he doesn't need the votes of Seniors. I don't appreciate being ridiculed.

It is my understanding that Obama probably could fly a Navy Aircraft but he wasn't needed at the time to save the country.

Art in PA

[GG]

Going after McCain for not using e-mail when the reason is because he can't type due to his injuries from torture as a POW is REALLY stupid. When this spreads, it will do more damage to Obama than McCain. Did no one in the Obama camp think to check Google? Jonah Goldberg found the reason and published the respons in less than a day; not from some right-wing source either, but the Boston Globe! I know liberals in the media are mad Obama has fallen, but face it - the cause is primarily the actions of the left and his own campaign. These stupid personal attacks on Palin and McCain are showing that the Democrats are the ones who are actually being "mean;" the Republicans are attacking policy positions and the image of Obama, not his family or personal attributes. Ever since the press began the onslaught on Palin's family, Obama has been falling like a rock. And yet the stupidity continues...

[T Lifson]

The Obama campaign's new ad mocking John McCain for not using email fails to recognize that because of the torture he endured as a prisoner of war, he is unable to use a typewriter keyboard. They are mocking a somewhat physically challenged man for his disability.

Jonah Goldberg, who found the Boston Globe noting in 2002 that "McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard", analogizes:

In a similar vein I guess it's an outrage that the blind governor of New York David Patterson doesn't know how to drive a car. After all, transportation issues are pretty important. How dare he serve as governor while being ignorant of what it's like to navigate New York's highways.

[Steven Wilson]

This is a good thing.....Obama will be stting in the Oval Office playing mortal combat.....while McCain is actually doing his job talking to foreign dignitaries about moving the country into the next Century.

Most computer literate kids I know....are on playstation and we all day and night.

They don't know what work or a job even have in common.

In between Obama's smoke breaks of illegitimate drugs.....he did a lot of shopping on QVC.

He is an expert.

[Steven Wilson]

Yeah...but Obama supports killing the kid before teaching him to run from the child molestor.

You would figure Obama would be teaching the kid to run from his mother in the abortion clinic first. Then he would at least be alive....to have a chance to run from the child molestor.

[Aunt Bea]

Shame, shame, shame!

John McCain can't keyboard because of his POW injuries.

Obama owes him an apology. A heartfelt apology.

How low can a campaign get????

[Brian in San Diego]

Let's see... yesterday Biden asked a paraplegic to stand up, and today Obama criticizes McCain, saying he "can't send an email" when the reason he can't is due to horrific crippling of his limbs during 5-1/2 years of captivity in the hands of the North Vietnamese. (Incidentally, that's also why he can't tie his shoes, brush his hair, or raise his arms above his shoulders.)

This ad by Obama is atrocious because it is ageist and attacks this man's disabilities that were suffered while fighting for our great nation - about the same time Obama was enrolled in elementary school in Indonesia.

[Paul]

McCain can not use a keyboard because as a POW his fingers and hands were crushed. Look it up on google. During the 2000 election both the Boston Globe and Slate coved this. The next two days of news will now be about yet another misstep and Obama will drop 3 - 5% in the polls. Unreal and very sad... Obama's people just mocked a cripple who received his disability as a POW??? AND on the same day Biden asked MO state senator Chuck Graham who is confined to a wheelchair to “Chuck, stand up, let the people see you.”??? I want my money back!

[Mel]

I'm voting for a president, not a secretary.

My 8-year-old can send e-mail. That doesn't mean she's qualified to be president. E-mail is so often a waste of time anyway.

From Forbes in 2000:

"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. "

[Ana Sarcas]

Swing, and a miss. Again. Obama making fun of McCain because of war injuries: Priceless.

[Florida Bear]

So what!

B. H. Obama doesn't know how to fly a jet plane.

A president does not need to do everything himself.

[BabbleOn]

Oh, COME ON, people. My Dad is eighty-seven years old, has Parkinsons AND Alzheimers, and is blind in one eye, but he can still send an e-mail and surf the net.

[BabbleOn]

McCain on the internet, in his own words.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Economic/John_McCain_Technology.htm

Uses Internet to read news & to get donations

Q: We’re interested in knowing how much each one of you uses the Internet. How much time do you spend on it?

A: Not nearly as well as I should. My wife Cindy is a whiz. And when I want to find out what’s on CNN, or The NY Times, or other communist periodicals, I always go to it. But the phenomenal thing about the Internet [is that] we’ve gotten like $7 million in contributions over the Internet. It’s been marvelous. $7 million, because they want reform, they want the government back.
Source: GOP debate in Los Angeles Mar 2, 2000

[Hoodlum]

Big Mac flew a multi-million dollar aircraft off to war for this nation. Screw it if he can't use a laptop. I have seen Obama-Lama's B/S ads, and it tells me a lot more about him and his ilk than it does about McCain. Between his wife's hatred for white America, his church's hatred for white America, I've seen all I want to see about this empty shirt. And what community WAS it that he supposedly organized? A black Panther reviveal??
Enough already.

[BB In Fargo]

McCain can't use a computer. He also can't comb his hair or tie his shoes. All because of the torture he received as a POW.

[Dan O]

Week before last it was killing the retarded.

Last week it was calling women pigs.

This week its denigrating Veterans.

Whats next Barry? Gonna pick on midgets next week?