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John McCain Discovers the Internet
 By Tom Shoop | Monday, July 14, 2008  |  12:46 PM

A year ago, after Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he's a "very low-tech person" who doesn't use e-mail, and President Bush acknowleged he had a thing or two to learn about cyberattacks, I posed this rhetorical question in a column : "Is it too much to ask at this stage that top federal leaders have at least a working knowledge of technology?"

Apparently so. John McCain revealed in a New York Times interview this weekend that he's pretty low-tech himself. He told the paper he relies on his wife and and two aides to deal with this whole Internet thing. “They go on for me,” he said. “I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.”

Also, McCain said he's “never felt the particular need to e-mail.”

It's easy to joke about this stuff, and there are good reasons why a politican might not want to personally leave the online trail that e-mailing entails. But setting aside the issue of whether the country should be run by people who basically never go near a computer, it's hard to imagine how they make it through a working day or week without doing so.

I know that top career officials in government used to get by having their assistants handle all computer-related tasks for them, but that's not true any more, is it?



Comments


I am stunned. This proves how out of touch he is. Not going online or using email in this age? Can any of you imagine life without the computer? I have been using them every day for twenty years now. Heaven help us... My daughter was computer literate at age 4.

Jason Ganley  | Thursday, July 17, 2008 |  03:13 AM


An old career politician such as McCain would have had very little time to learn the internet. What does a politician do? Mainly attend fundraising events, talk, listen to and talk with people, consult with staff when they need information and talk some more.

I don't know what advantage the USE of internet-enabled devices provides to a president, but I do know that understanding of the internet and the use of these devices is important for understanding potential solutions to current problems.

All the productivity gains for American workers we hear about are driven by technology. If a President doesn't understand technology and it's uses or impact, he won't be able to govern well. But does he have to use it to understand it? I don't know.

an observer  | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 |  01:13 PM


Saw New Yorker cartoon where Dem. nominee will be doing other things in the Oval Office...

AG  | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 |  10:59 AM


You would have thought that when Al Gore developed the Internet he would have trained all his fellow Senators

dan ketter  | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 |  10:42 AM


I have an 80 year old mother living in Iowa that did not finish high school that is 100 times more computer literate than John McCain. The guy openly admits and "economics" are not his thing, hanging around Iraq for the next 100 or so years is OK, and now he cannot find the "on" button on his CPU. The scariest part is our illustrious president also admits he is cyber challenged. I think I will write in my Mom. She understands computers, what financial challenges the American family faces and knows a recession when she sees one. Problem is she does not have the millions of dollars needed to buy an election.

Computer Literate Retired Fed  | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 |  10:27 AM


It's simply amazing that somehow the country managed to win wars, travel to the moon, find a cure for polio and progress to the point it has without the benefit of cellphones, email, internet, text messages, etc.
Hmm! Could it be that we don't need these things after all?

Bubba  | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 |  08:52 AM


Yeah, we should get Al Gore to be President. After all, he invented the internet.

a taxpayer and a federal worker  | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 |  08:34 AM


The leadership in the Federal Government are about as to illiterate as they come. If you find it hard to believe, then examine the federal scorecard. If agency is still getting a "C" or lower grade it is because management cannot read and follow simple logic, instead they recreate their own processes in their own image and receive an "F" for their troubles. Look at the ODNI that has been working on consolidating the Certification and Accreditation Processes for over 2 years and still no news is good news. It has been stated that the new process will follow the NIST standards, talk about the blind leading the blind. It is NIST that requires a Configuration Management Plan NIST SP 800-53 CM-1 and yet NIST has failed in four years of not written a single policy or SP or FIPS directive explaining the content of a CMP.

Robert Edwards  | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 |  08:20 AM



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Government Executive Editor Tom Shoop takes a look at news and events affecting the federal bureaucracy, from the perspective of a longtime observer of government.

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