Last updated on August 11th, 2014 at 12:01 am
Today in response to a question about what McCain’s work on the Senate Commerce Committee did to help him understand the financial markets economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin claimed that John McCain helped create the Blackberry, which seems to be quite an accomplishment for a man who can’t use the Internet.
In response to a question about the financial markets, Holtz-Eakin held up his Blackberry and answered, “He did this. Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce committee so you’re looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that’s what he did.”
Bill Burton of the Obama campaign pointed out that this isn’t even the worst thing that McCain has said all week, “If John McCain hadn’t said that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong’ on the day of one of our nation’s worst financial crises, the claim that he invented the BlackBerry would have been the most preposterous thing said all week.”
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This is hysterical. Al Gore was abused and distorted by the right wing in 2000, for his comments about the Internet, but Gore understands and uses the technology. The basis for Holtz-Eakin’s answer seems to be that since the Blackberry is a tool used in commerce, and the selling of it is a form of commerce, then McCain helped create it. Wow, this makes no sense. On the scale of McCain lies and distortions, this one flies straight to the top.
John McCain is apparently some sort of technology idiot savant. He creates devices that he has no idea how to use. I would just like to remind everybody one more time that the question was about McCain’s knowledge of financial markets. Holtz-Eakin never answered the question, so we can assume that McCain doesn’t know anything about the financial markets either.
The only question I can see between Blackberries and the financial markets is that there were thousands of people who discovered that they were wiped out yesterday on their Blackberries. The McCain campaign has taken their lying to a whole new level. They have gone from lying about the issues to lying about McCain’s accomplishments. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what other technologies that John McCain has created. My guess is that by Friday the campaign will say that he created the iPod.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
