John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

by Jonathan Singer, Tue Sep 16, 2008 at 07:40:41 AM EDT

Move over, Al Gore. You may lay claim to the Internet, but John McCain helped create the BlackBerry.
At least that's the contention of a top McCain policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Waving his BlackBerry personal digital assistant and citing McCain's work as a senator, he told reporters Tuesday, "You're looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create."

Perhaps the only upside for John McCain right now is the fact that most voters are not likely paying attention to the daily back and forth of the campaign at this juncture and are instead focused on the situation with the economy, and as such this particular story may not trickle down from the Beltway down to the electorate. On the other hand, this story perfectly fits into the meme that has been developing in recent days, namely that McCain and his campaign will say anything -- even lie through his teeth -- in order to win the Presidency.

We saw how damaging (even if untrue) that meme was for Al Gore eight years ago. So with the McCain campaign fully feeding the current story line by releasing untruthful ads, flat out lying about issues ranging from Sarah Palin's background to Barack Obama's policies, and now claiming that McCain helped create BlackBerrys (weren't they developed by a Canadian company?), it may get real hard for McCain to shake the "liar" label.

Tags: John McCain, Truthfulness (all tags)

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

This is so lame a campaign most days on the blogs.

by Jerome Armstrong 2008-09-16 07:50AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

How is this lame? As much as campaigns are about specific issues, they are also about voters' sentiments. These include whether voters see a candidate as honest and genuine. I have been writing for years that John McCain is among the worst of the cynical politicians, willing to say and do just about anything in the hopes of feeding his near endless well of ambition. Today's story might not be the most meaningful example of this -- McCain's flip flops on issues like campaign finance, lobbying, Iraq, taxes, and immigration, just to name a few, are no doubt more important -- but that does not mean that the BlackBerry story is not a great illustration (and perhaps even a more relatable one for voters) of the looseness with which McCain and his campaign approach fact, reality and the truth.

by Jonathan Singer 2008-09-16 08:05AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

Well you see Jonathan, Jerome wants this blog to be all doom and gloom and it can't be that way if you post the evidence that John McCain, and his campaign, are kind of foolish and don't really care about things like truth. Moreover, we really can't have doom and gloom if people post things like this that also happen to be amusing.

by JDF 2008-09-16 08:52AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

Actually, I prefer something that's not a netroots replacement for Drudge.

by Jerome Armstrong 2008-09-16 09:16AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

I am sure you are shocked to find that I disagree with your assessment of the post. But hey, everyone is entitled to their opinion, right?

by JDF 2008-09-16 11:06AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

Jonathan, its wisest to just ignore everything Jerome says these days.

Lord knows he seemingly can't say anything positive with regards to anything negative about Republicans.

Such a fall from when the days when I was thrilled he would be coming to Seattle to talk about his book with Markos.

by sorrodos 2008-09-16 09:13AM | 0 recs

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How do we get better?

You may be right, and there has been grossly insufficient coverage of the candidates (particularly Obama) on the campaign trail, in the news.

My question to you is, though, how specifically would you change this? There have been some vague articles criticizing Obama's campaign but very little in the way of "this is exactly what he needs to do."

My take is that he needs to address the structural instability in not just our economy now, but in our world that is increasingly becoming a house of cards, so Americans get the fragility of what they are standing on and how the old tricks are not going to work.

I'm not sure how he does that.

I don't think stuff like this Blackberry business hurts and may help a bit if it is addressed as, jeez, that's the only thing they can come up with AND it's a lie, AND it's just so damn stupid, but not address it as oh my god isn't this terrible.

by mady 2008-09-16 08:34AM | 0 recs

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Re: How do we get better?

Look, I don't have the elixir for the media woes, and they are prominent as you suggest. I happen to like reading blogs that discuss the substance of the race in terms of something more than I can find while looking at the crap that corporate bloggers put up.

by Jerome Armstrong 2008-09-16 09:19AM | 0 recs

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Re: How do we get better?

I'm not sure what you mean by "corporate bloggers."

I'm kind of new to the culture here, so I think I misinterpreted your criticism.

For my part, I have a problem with the anonymity of this process as I believe one's history really influences what is said, and if anyone is going to spout off, they need to reveal some of who they are and where they are coming from. It makes the whole picture clearer. It's a money where your mouth is kind of thing, people should not be able to hide their agenda as easily as they do on line.

You, Todd, Jonathan, all have clearly accessible biographies and it gives you a different kind of weight and clarity. Would be nice if all posters offered up some of that.

Are you talking about the amount of pure information available in posts, stories, diaries, or something else, scholarship, repetition?

by mady 2008-09-16 10:06AM | 0 recs

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Re: How do we get better?

I totally agree with you on that end. It is something that I'll be working to get rid of (anonymity) with the relaunch. Thanks.

Corporate bloggers are the ones blogging on corporate websites (Politico, Atlantic...).

by Jerome Armstrong 2008-09-16 07:59PM | 0 recs

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Re: How do we get better?

I'm glad, that sounds great.

by mady 2008-09-17 06:32AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

We're sorry you're not entertained. :(

by Johnny Gentle Famous Crooner 2008-09-16 08:42AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

I know you try your best, its just not good enough.

by Jerome Armstrong 2008-09-16 07:59PM | 0 recs

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Update

McCain's spokesperson now says it was a "boneheaded joke" and said McCain laughed when he heard the accusation.

Obama talking heads should keep this remark out of the news tonight. Seems like a trap to defuse the McCain liar meme by giving us our own "lipstick" protest.

by vcalzone 2008-09-16 07:53AM | 0 recs

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Re: Update

read my post below

you can't expect people to believe that senior domestic policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, is "some staffer"

a lie to cover up a gaffe is a stupid thing to do right now.

he is only feeding the meme.

by TruthMatters 2008-09-16 08:03AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

Yeah, in his spare time McCain was working on the Newton project at Apple, and then he was the behind the scenes genuis at Palm, split off with Treo, and helped the RIM folks launch the Blackberry.

What, you didn't know he was a Code God?

He practically dreams in C++!

The man writes everything in binary, doesn't even bother with assembly language.

by WashStateBlue 2008-09-16 07:54AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

please note that this was senior domestic policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin

and not the Senior Deomestic Policy adviser

McCain is already trying to back track saying it was a joke by some "staffer"

some staffer my ass

by TruthMatters 2008-09-16 08:01AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

And the guy can't even turn on a computer. Pretty amazing.

by jmnyc 2008-09-16 08:10AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

I think this is terribly unfair. Holtz-Eakin obviously didn't mean that McCain invented the Blackberry, but rather the blackberry.

In fact, many thousands of years ago, McCain decided he wanted something tangier than a raspberry, and through generations upon generations of selective cross-pollination, our modern-day blackberry arrived.

You should thank him for his horticultural contributions and apologize for this smear-job.

by Johnny Gentle Famous Crooner 2008-09-16 08:35AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

Well, I guess when you're older than dirt you can claim to have invented just about anything, huh? ;)

by writerswrite 2008-09-16 08:48AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

Let's not push it. As I recall, McCain also invented dirt.

by fogiv 2008-09-16 09:10AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

Wait, wouldn't that mean that the fruit evolved over time? Palin isn't going to be happy about this.

by thatpurplestuff 2008-09-16 09:03AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

No, no. See, it was intelligently designed by John McCain to have the "appearance" of having evolved.

Oooops:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/t heism/cosmological.html

by fogiv 2008-09-16 09:14AM | 0 recs

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all lies he invented "the WiFi"

by FLS 2008-09-16 08:58AM | 0 recs

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Re: all lies he invented "the WiFi"

Wrong. It was the WiPi, pronounced WIPE - EEEE. It's a medicated pad of some sort.

by fogiv 2008-09-16 09:15AM | 0 recs

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SOP trying to kill offshore drilling.

You knew it had to be a farce. House Reeps are trying to derail the Democratic bill which will allow more drilling.

Their problems with it? It doesn't allow drilling close enough to shore (they want 3 miles) and they don't want royalty money used to promote alternate energy.

But worst of all? If it passes they will no longer have a campaign issue.

Same Old Party.

by ObamaBiden 2008-09-16 09:03AM | 0 recs

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Re: John McCain Apparently Invented the BlackBerry

Here's why the story matters, at least a little bit.

The question posed to Holtz-Eakin was, in effect, what economic credential does John McCain have? Pretty important, given the meltdown.

The answer was this nonsense: he "invented" the Blackberry (through his role on the commerce committee).

The serious underlying point, then, is this: McCain doesn't really have many economic credentials, but you can be sure he'll try to inflate his resume and bamboozle people on the point. This was a clumsy attempt by Holtz-Eakmin to do just that.

This story/joke helps block the coming attempts to inflate McCain's resume, just because it's so over-the-top, so transparent. For this reason, the story clearly helps.

by Larko 2008-09-16 09:11AM | 0 recs