Biden's Internet Blunder

Another day, another Joe Biden blunder...



From FOX News:

Vice President Joe Biden, tasked with overseeing the $787 billion stimulus package, has been having a little trouble with his "numbers."

During an interview on CBS' "Early Show" on Wednesday, Biden told viewers to check out a government-run Web site tracking stimulus spending, but admitted he was embarrassed because he couldn't remember the site's "number."

"You know, I'm embarrassed. Do you know the Web site number?" he asked an aide standing out of view. "I should have it in front of me and I don't. I'm actually embarrassed."

Biden, who seemed to indicate that he thought the Internet worked like a giant telephone, sounded an unusually Luddite note inside an administration often heralded for its mastery of the Web.

Web sites, as much of the "Early Show" audience may have been aware, are generally referred to by their URLs or addresses. The one Biden was searching for was Recovery.gov, which he announced moments later when reminded of the proper address.

It was weird for Biden to call the website's address its "number."

It's worse that Biden didn't know something as simple as Recovery.gov. I could have told him the "number" of the website. He should have known it.

He said he was embarrassed. I can see why.

Remember how the Dems mercilessly mocked John McCain during the campaign for his lack of Internet prowess?

In effect, the AP called McCain a dumb, old coot, belittling the senior citizen McCain for being less than Web-savvy.

From July 20, 2008:

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."

The article goes on to talk about American seniors and the Internet.

It's so condescending, meant to depict McCain as incapable and out of touch, old and decrepit.

Well, Biden didn't exactly come off as being very Web-savvy when he couldn't come up with a simple name of a website or its "number" without the help of an aide.

Is he really the guy who should be in charge of overseeing OUR stimulus dollars?

From U.S. News and World Report:

As part of his effort to guide the spending of the nearly $800 billion stimulus package, President Obama has established a Web page, www.recovery.gov, to let Americans see where their tax dollars are going. And today he announced he's put Vice President Joe Biden in charge of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

I assume Biden being in charge of the stimulus is really just an honorary position. If not, we're in even bigger trouble than the big trouble we're already in.