McCain and the Internet

This is a cheap shot.

From the Associated Press:

If Sen. John McCain is really serious about becoming a Web-savvy citizen, perhaps Kathryn Robinson can help.

Robinson is now 106—that's 35 years older than McCain—and she began using the Internet at 98, at the Barclay Friends home in West Chester, Pa., where she lives. "I started to learn because I wanted to e-mail my family," she says—in an e-mail message, naturally.

Blogs have been buzzing recently over McCain's admission that when it comes to the Internet, "I'm an illiterate who has to rely on his wife for any assistance he can get." And the 71-year-old presumptive Republican nominee, asked about his Web use last week by the New York Times, said that aides "go on for me. I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself."

How unusual is it for a 71-year-old American to be unplugged?

That depends how you look at the statistics. Only 35 percent of Americans over age 65 are online, according to data from April and May compiled by the Pew Internet Project at the Pew Research Center.

But when you account for factors like race, wealth and education, the picture changes dramatically. "About three-quarters of white, college-educated men age over 65 use the Internet," says Susannah Fox, director of the project.

"John McCain is an outlier when you compare him to his peers," Fox says. "On one hand, a U.S. senator has access to information sources and staff assistance that most people do not. On the other, the Internet has become such a go-to resource that it's a curiosity to hear that someone doesn't rely on it the way most Americans do."

Good grief.

"McCain is an outlier when you compare him to his peers."

Even a 106-year-old woman knows more than McCain.

I guess that settles it. This guy is not qualified to be president.

What a joke!

McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan presented a somewhat updated picture when contacted by The Associated Press on Friday: "He's fully capable of browsing the Internet and checking Web sites," Buchanan said. "He has a Mac and uses it several times a week. He's working on becoming more familiar with the Internet."

That's a good thing, says Tobey Dichter, CEO of Generations on Line, a group that helps bring seniors—including the 106-year-old Robinson—into the digital age.

"He needs the self-empowerment" of going online himself, says Dichter. "There are too many people surrounding John McCain who are willing to print an e-mail for him" _or do a search on his behalf, like the aides who, he says, show him the Drudge Report.

"But that cheats him of an opportunity to let his own mind take him to the next link," says Dichter. "If he doesn't know what links are available, he will only get exactly what he's asking for, and nothing more."

The AP paints McCain as a doddering old coot.

If aides help him, he's being cheated out of an "opportunity to let his own mind take him to the next link."

"He needs the self-empowerment" of going online himself."

McCain is being treated so condescendingly. Let the old man's mind get a little exercise. He needs self-empowerment.

He's the Republican candidate to be president of the United States!

That's rather self-empowering.

This article is really disgusting. I am so sick of McCain being mocked because of his age.

It not only insults him but it insults millions of older Americans. It's ageism, pure and simple.

Racism isn't an issue in this campaign as much as ageism is.

Age isn't revered in American culture, unless you're an old lib like Walter Cronkite.

I'll be waiting for the AP to do a piece on how many people Obama's age smoke.

Is he an outlier when you compare him with his peers?

What's his problem that he can't kick his addiction?

I don't know if he's up to the job of being leader of the free world if he can be defeated by a cigarette.

Wouldn't it be self-empowering if Obama could just manage to stay away from nicotine for good and not fall back into such a bad and so often deadly habit?

I think he needs that.