Scripting News - Latest Comments in Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

chuck — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:29:18 -0000

Good one, Josh. I have a similar slogan, inspired by your post and by Clinton: "It's YOU, Stupid." What I worry about is that what used to be called the Silent Majority is now the Stupid Majority, and it's why Obama may lose this thing yet. What is it with the American insistence on stupid presidents? You know, when Gore and Bush debated during the first debates, and Gore rolled his eyes after Bush said something idiotic, I knew at that moment he lost the election, and I said that to my wife when it happened. I said, "that's it, he just lost." Americans hate the smartest kid in the class. They always have. YOU don't, and Dave doesn't, but most people do. They wanna have a beer and talk about their Ford F150 with their president. I myself am happy to have a beer with my president, too, but I enjoy quaffing one with someone that isn't a knucklehead. I like Obama because I get the feeling he is smarter than I am. I want someone smarter than me running this country. I don't even think that's much to ask for. Obama won't always do stuff I like -- I still don't understand why he collapsed on FISA, but I don't care that much right now about particulars. I just want someone smart in that office. If McCain was smart, I wouldn't be spooked by any of this. Palin is a tiny bit smarter, but she's scary, and has no concept of history, which makes her as dumb as McCain. No more dumb presidents. Enough!

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

chuck — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:21:27 -0000

I know there isn't much of a chance any readers of this blog are in the Austin area, but in case you are, I posted a bad link to my move on Obama election event. It is actually here. http://pol.moveon.org/event....

Sorry.

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

Bryan "bytehead" Price — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:04:38 -0000

Oh, I definitely agree that not all French are like the Parisians. I met quite a few nice Frenchmen in Switzerland. The only nice people to me in Paris were the non-French. I mean, I had to take a taxi from one train station to another!

And this American can trace his lineage from Ireland and the Great Potato Famine to the Clary's of France, almost making me related to Napoleon by marrieag (see Desiree Clary). So I can't rag on the French too bad.

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

dave — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:57:06 -0000

Okay, well that's a great explanation, but I give it no credence cause he lies all the time, and doesn't care if we know it. There's no trust, sorry.

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

jbenson2 — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:53:28 -0000

Even ABC agrees that McCain's war wounds prevent him from repetitive motions like typing.

http://tinyurl.com/6dmxh7

Assuredly McCain isn't comfortable talking about this -- and the McCain campaign discouraged me from writing about this -- but the reason the aged Arizonan doesn't use a computer or send email is because of his war wounds.

I realize some of the nastier liberals in the blogosphere will see this as McCain once again "playing the POW card," but it's simply a fact: typing on a regular keyboard for any sustained period of time bothers McCain physically.

He can type, he occasionally does type, but in general the injuries he sustained as a POW -- ones that make it impossible for him to raise his arms high enough to comb his hair -- mean that small tasks make his shoulders ache, so he tries to avoid any repetitive exercise.

Again, it's not that he can't type, he just by habit avoids when he can repetitive exercise involving his arms. He does if he has to, as with handshaking or autographs.

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

Not-French — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:49:14 -0000

If you promise not to think that all Europeans are similar to Parisians, I will try my best to think that not all Americans are as arrogant as some of the tourists that I have met.

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

chuck — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:10:33 -0000

This shit has been going on a long time. Heresy is a staple of Republican thinking. It didn't used to be. Gerald Ford was an honorable man. http://thegoreyears.wordpre...

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

chuck — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:07:16 -0000

"You know people outside the US say they like Americans it's just our government they hate. "

Maybe, but you won't hear that anymore if McCain beats Obama. You won't hear that if the Silent Majority rears its ugly head again and loudly proclaims itself The Stupid Majority. I don't know about you, but I prefer quaffing a beer with someone who can challenge me intellectually, rather than someone who is excited about his new Ford F150.

Unfortunately, however, this election will be decided by dunderheads. And so far, McCain has that vote hat in hand.

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

chuck — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:54:17 -0000

For those of us who have moved because a million and a half dollars should give you more than a hovel, I have a MoveOn event in Cedar Park, TX. Feel free to fly down to see what a quarter million will buy you in a sane market, and be ready to rock the vote:

http://pol.moveon.org/event...

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

milvy — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:32:23 -0000

Nice piece, Dave. However, I have to take issue with this: " I keep telling them they don't know Americans, only 12 percent of us have passports".

On the contrary, Dave, we know Americans. And it doesn't matter whether 12 or 100 percent of you travel abaroad. We know you. We know you because you are us. Ninety-nine percent of the people who've populated the US over the past 20 generations have come there from south of the Rio Grande and the other four continents. All the peoples of the world are in America. And that is why the great Herman Melville could declare in his novel, Redburn, "You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world...."

See my guest column here (www.brooklynron.com/2008/08... for the full quote.

Melville lets us understand why the majority of the world's people love America and pray that you elect a wise, honest and just president.

Regards
Milverton

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

chuck — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:31:38 -0000

I'm finally actually getting involved in this election. I am hosting a MoveOn event in my new home town, Cedar Park, TX. I'm sick of this crap. I'm 50 years old and have never been involved in politics. I think I may have even voted Gerald Ford, a Republican of quite a different stripe than these disgusting monsters. I hope that, instead of whining, others do the same. And I hope that, for once, the kids vote.

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

Michael Markman (Mickeleh) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 08:32:37 -0000

Like so much of the McCain campaign, the "can't use a keyboard because of war injuries" is a crock. My first thought was about all of the amazing adaptive devices and software that make computers accessible to people with much more limiting disabilities than McCain's. I blogged about that yesterday, and a friend commented to point me to this on Huffington Post that shows with photographic evidence, that McCain has no problem with the fine motor skills needed to work cell phones and his--or anyon'e Blackberry. The lying just needs to stop.

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

Jason — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 00:44:02 -0000

Dave,

You 'approve' this message.

Listen closely to the way they say that phrase.

Is the message 'approved' by you?
OK. you 'approve' messages. Did you approve this one?

I can't figure out what they really mean when they say that at the end of their commercials. ;-)

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

patrickg — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 00:21:16 -0000

From the linked Forbes article :

"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. "

Apparently the Obama campaign needs to brush up on their opposition research...

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

Paul — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:52:40 -0000

McCain has a secretary, doesn't he? He has no escuse for being out of tough.

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

Joshua Francis Whalen — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:06:18 -0000

An Ad I'd like to see goes something like this:

He can't send an email, use a computer, admits he knows nothing about economics, science, or technology. She had never been out of the United States in her life until last year, has no background in economics, international relations, or technology, and her major claim to qualification is she can see russia from her backyard.

They say they are more qualified to run the United States than a Columbia University & Harvard educated Senator who had been all around the planet before his first peach fuzz grew in.

We're not trying to suggest that McCain and Palin are stupid; We're simply asking you if you are, because they obviously think so.

Perhaps not those exact words, but something along those lines. Finally, at the end, a screen title:

What're you, Stoopid?

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

Bryan "bytehead" Price — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 18:57:09 -0000

Now I feel bad. I was 49 when I finally left this country. Now I have had a passport since 2000, and before I started dating my wife, I had plans on going to England and spending a week in London. My wife had been to Columbia before we married as a student. Instead, I finally went to Paris to travel by train to Basel, Switzerland to be with my wife who was working there for two weeks. If I never travel to Paris again, it will be too soon. Rude and extremely unhelpful.

But now I'm not an international virgin any more, and spent the month of July with my wife in South Africa.. Probably doing it again in January.

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

ursulas — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:50:02 -0000

Thanks for the post on this! Had a right winger slam me on my blog for posting the Obama video about McCain "Still" and he used the POW injuries meme.

First I'd heard of it.

And yet ...McCain can still eat with a fork and do alot of other things including use a phone.

He needs to get with Steven Hawkings to learn a thing or two about living in the tech age!

ursulas on twitter

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

TomR — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:26:37 -0000

Not to be the party pooper but our candidate is going off-focus. McCain actually ran quite an internet-savvy campaign way back in 2000:
http://www.forbes.com/asap/...

Many of us were commenting back then on his use and understanding of the social web and how he was one of the first to really tap into it.

Our candidate has become surrounded by people telling him to react to Republicans, instead of being Barack Obama. It is not helping matters that our friends in the media, which even I have to admit have been kind to our guy, are now making us look foolish by their excesses in the trivial.

Obama could call a press conference at any time and refocus the debate into substantive issues. There was simply no excuse for the campaign to waste time and political capital on this silly ad. All that does is give a week's worth of fodder for Olbermann/O'Reilly and all the rest.

We can't blame the Republicans for the distractions this things is causing. Obama - bring back YOUR people to the campaign.

Obama's campaign staff has too many of the same-old political types, and the message of change is getting lost. And stupid commercials like this make us look no better than the Republicans.

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

marshal sandler — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:31:26 -0000

Dear Dave, I am 72 years old use a computer ! I lived in Arizona for years, Cowboys don't need computers they only need a shovel ! But most Cowboy's when they dig a hole stop when they reach bottom, but Mr McCains Ranch hands are heading toward the center of the earth, the digital age is burying them in the same dung hill they created ! All they can do now is sit on the Dung and Crow ! A Covey of Roosters on THE HILL !

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

Dan — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:30:36 -0000

My grandfather is 88. He was a navigator on a B17-G, shot down on his first combat mission, new year's day 1943. He saved the lives of the two enlisted men in his second of the plane and severly injured both his legs doing so, so much so that he never ran again. He spent a year in a POW camp, and his experience was doubly terrifying as his dogtag had a big H on it, signifying that he was Jewish, and therefore his blood must not be given to the evangelical southerns who were stil rabidly anti-semetic in those days.

Not only is he as much of a war hero as Senator McCain, he is also better educated. Although Annapolis is an excellent school, my grandfather is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton School of Business, considered to be the toughest business school in the world.

My grandfather is not what I'd call computer literate (He retired at age 75 because it became clear that he would need to learn a computer), but in the last few years he's learned to do google searches, turn his machine on, and check on his investment portfolio, as well as buy books from amazon, look up movie showtimes, and keep in contact with other 8th Air Force veterans.

Although I think him slightly more qualified than John McCain, my grandfather is far too old to be president in the twenty-first century. He has been since he was about 65. And I think my parents, in their mid-fifties, are starting to become severely out of touch. They once described facebook to a friend as a website designed for kids to document their crimes (without a hint of humor).

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

Terry Fernandez — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:30:21 -0000

you go Dave. Dont hold back

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

nakedjen — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:05:11 -0000

He doesn't use the Internet for the same reason he doesn't understand economics and the same reason he thinks we could stay in Iraq for 100 years -- because he's a dumb, lazy and ignorant rich kid and has the curiosity of a bowl of oatmeal.

I think that is perhaps the funniest sentence (and very true, as well) sentence you've written a long time. It made me spit out my own oatmeal in laughter. Thank you for that.

I had no idea (and I thought I was paying attention) that Palin had so little experience traveling outside of the United States. I am now beginning to really believe I am more qualified for this position than she despite my rather shady history of traveling with the Grateful Dead and questionable mental stability. (At least that means I've traveled and you might actually get two people for the price of one!).

I'd also like to add that my very ancient great uncles are all quite savvy users of the Internet and tote around their own laptops (they read my blog and many others) and even trade stocks. If they can do it at 90-plus years old, I think McCain could certainly manage. I imagine he's just too stubborn to bother to learn how. Which then begs the question, "What other things will he be too stubborn to bother to learn?"

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

dave — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:21:02 -0000

They are. This is all part of a thread started by an Obama ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Dave

Re: Do McC's war injuries prevent him from using a computer? (Scripting News)

dave — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:20:27 -0000

Great piece. My mom taught at a university and had students in the 80s, and if they didn't use a word processor they couldn't intern for her -- she said she didn't want people that ignorant working on her projects. McCain isn't old enough for age to be the excuse, perhaps if he were 20 years older, the people who clung to their typewriters in the 80s as the PCs and Macs swept in. But he could have and should have learned to use the new tools. I think even the Republicans know that.