That email thing

[jducoeur]

[Happy birthday to _lackey_, and belated birthday to laurion!]

Madeleine Albright just touched on a point that's been bugging me for a couple of days now. Okay, let's talk about it.

It started with The Email Thing. You know, the dumb mini-flap about the fact that McCain doesn't know how to use email. When that first broke, I stuck it in the back of my mind and asked myself whether it mattered in the slightest. My initial reaction was that it didn't -- but as time has moved on, I've found myself more and more bothered by it.

Let's be clear, the mere fact that McCain doesn't email is irrelevant. Indeed, there are perfectly plausible reasons why he might not: in particular, it's certainly possible that the little-discussed problems with his arms make it impractical for him to use a keyboard. But there's another reason, which is the most plausible and the one that *does* bother me: he never wanted to learn how.

This is often dismissed as, "oh, he's just old, and old people don't do this kind of high tech". To this, I call bullshit. My parents are nearly his age, and don't have this supposed limitation. Heck, my mother was an avowed technophobe for much of her adult life, but is now a total blogophile and I'm going to be installing Skype in her apartment sometime soon. And I'm sorry, but we're not talking about today's cutting-edge obscure technology: we're talking about stuff that has been mainstream for decades, that is mature and generally easy to use. In general, folks who have access to email these days and don't know how are just plain scared to invest the ego in learning.

Now for an ordinary person, that's understandable, and I don't hold it against them. A little fear of the new and different is natural, and we all have our blind spots. But I *do* expect more from a Presidential candidate. In particular, I damned well expect someone who is not only not afraid to learn, but who is downright eager to do so.

And I find myself profoundly suspicious of McCain on this point. The email thing in and of itself is minor, but if it signals a broader trend it's not. And look at what he says and does. His approaches to conflict, in particular, are profoundly rooted in classic 20th-century thinking. He seems to keep reacting as if our current conflicts were still World War II, or the Cold War, missing the fact that the dynamic has changed greatly, requiring considerable subtlety and attention to detail. His style is old-fashioned, and that appeals to many people. I can understand that, and I value the good bits of those old policies. But we have to recognize that not every old-fashioned policy is necessarily good and right today.

This election keeps coming back to Experience, and I won't deny that that matters. But it does not matter as *much* as the ability to learn on the job, in a world that is changing ever-faster. It's clear to me from the past year that Obama is a quick study, constantly learning and refining his thinking. I am not nearly as sanguine that McCain is learning much of anything any more. The only things he seems to have changed boil down to giving in to his handlers and the right wing, pretty much across the board.

Don't take this as me being sure about any of this -- I know the man only through the filter of the media, and that's a hazy lens. But I'm quite nervous about what I'm seeing, in one of the most important characteristics that a President must possess...

Comments

[johno.livejournal.com]

One of the things that has always bugged me about the email thing, is that I know that all the House Members and Congress Folks (and their staff) have had email for more then a decade. More then enought time for him to have at learned the basics.

[asim.livejournal.com]

I just don't know about McCain.

McCain has just taken me to such depths of disappointment. I recall his last-minute about-face on the torture bill; the first time I was every really, truly disappointed in him. Until then, I think a lot of us Democrats thought of him as the crazy uncle. We weren't always sure about him, but he was likable, and seemed, well, more fun, more understandable, than the rest of that side of the family.
Running for President always takes something out of you. You can't ever really be "pure", running for high office, and I understand that you need to take sides. But this? So much of this, including the email deal, is, indeed, irrelevant. But it's becoming more and more indicative.

As for Obama, I was sold when I read an early article of his on his Foreign Policy ideas. He really hit that sweet spot, for me, between soft and hard power. His concept that we needed to not just add troops, but add them right -- boots on the ground to fight 4G wars over new, complex systems -- told me he's far from a lightweight on these issues, and that he really gets a lot of this.
One of the things that annoys me is when you misuse troops; the apparent current policy to put Special Forces, for example, in as bog-standard troopers really grates, and that told me that Obama gets why we have a vast variety of troops, and how to deploy them wisely. McCain is like Schwarzkopf in looking at troops as a large mass of men to be ordered, which can work, but mostly in invasion-style mass swarmings of men and material, not in the kind of fighting like Iraq, or Somaila for that matter. And that leads into McCain's Cold War-style thoughts on American Power...Anyway.

[dervishspin.livejournal.com]

What struck me about your write up was this paragraph:

His approaches to conflict, in particular, are profoundly rooted in classic 20th-century thinking. He seems to keep reacting as if our current conflicts were still World War II, or the Cold War, missing the fact that the dynamic has changed greatly, requiring considerable subtlety and attention to detail. His style is old-fashioned, and that appeals to many people. I can understand that, and I value the good bits of those old policies. But we have to recognize that not every old-fashioned policy is necessarily good and right today.

which was exactly my disquiet about Bush when he was running for office the first time. I wasn't certain that Gore was much better, seeing as he was so embroiled in the former administration for the previous 8 years, but he seemed not as likely to approach every problem with the mentality of "The Ruskies are coming!"

This election is about generations as much as it is about anything else. Are we going to keep letting the Baby Boomer's way of viewing the world to stand? Or is it time for our generation to re approach the world with fresh eyes?

Baby Boomer?

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

The broadest definition of the post-WWII baby boom is 1946-64. McCain precedes the boom by quite a bit, Obama and W were in it.
My non-emailing parents (in their 80s), my daughter (20) and we are all planning to vote for Obama.

Re: Baby Boomer?

[dervishspin.livejournal.com]

Sorry, perhaps Baby Boomer is the wrong phrase.
"Cold War Thinker" might be better.

My father missed being a baby boomer by strict definition by 6 days and I think technically I am included in the baby boomer generation by 12 days.

And he thinks like a boomer and I think like a Gen Xer, and yet we both clearly lived through the Cold War. A Cold War Thinker may cover a greater generational time gap than that.

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

I didn't hear about the email issue before this post. If my grandfather, now in his 70s and someone who used to be the most hidebound person I know -- if my grandfather can learn how to use email to the point where he now emails more often than he calls to see how I'm doing, then McCain has no excuse on not learning how, unless it's a physical disability thing. And even that, I'm sure there are ways of working around most physical difficulties.