Oh, how I wish I were making this up...
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.
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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.
I'm calling shenanigans. Right now. More, below the fold...
First of all, we have McCain's own words as to why he doesn't use a computer. Roll the footage...
Mac or PC?
Neither. I am an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get.
One of the earlier comments on Tapper's blog says this, which I think gives the [f]right[ened] wing's game away too early:
Finally this is being reported somewhere besides conservative websites. Obama bombs again. I'm sure the nuts will say he's playing the POW card...it was a stupid ad anyway. Who cares about e-mail??!! Obama screwed up his own overly hyped text message vp message. Gee, maybe he should stay away from computers. McCain/Palin 08
Ah, nothing like the smell of manufactured outrage in the morning!
So all the evidence on video shows McCain openly answering a question that he isn't guarded about, and it's not a party line. So we can assume an honest answer. And why wouldn't it be?
Obama takes McCain at his word. He's computer illiterate. And releases an ad saying so.
Now the "conservative websites" (plural) are reporting this. And the guy says it as if all of them are (note: he doesn't say some). Obama bombs, I is a partisan, McCain is * the Mavrick *
Are they really that desperate? (Short answer: yes. Long answer: hell, yes.) As posters on Tapper's blog point out: Stephen Hawkin has Lou Gehrig's Disease. He types words using his freaking TONGUE and he has written books.
And who's saying we want McCain to write War And Peace: The Return? Take my wife (please!). She has AS, so we have a cheap movable keyboard tray on our desk. I removed the standard slide-out tray, we bought this thing from Staples (I think. Or Office Max) and she can type without the pain.
(Sorry about the mess...)
She can't raise her arms for any length of time. Her shoulders hurt if she does, which was the reason the McCain campaign now says he doesn't use computers. A reason they 'didn't want us to know about' (shyeah, riiiight, SURE they didn't want this to be raised on the news on Monday, what with it being simultaneously talked about on the "conservative websites").
Is McCain trying to tell us he can't splurge $150 like we did, and have someone with a Philips screwdriver fit it to a desk? No, once again the [f]right[ened] wing are trying to make something an 'issue' again because they're running scared. They daren't fight this election like grown-ups. And now they demean everyone that would LIKE to use a computer keyboard to play games online, but can't because of some disability.
FOR SHAME. When are the 'real' conservatives going to take their name back from these liars, or are they softer than they pretend the Democrats are?