A quick history lesson: The first electronic computer, ENIAC, was built in 1946 when John McCain was ten years old. The first mainframes came in the 1950s when McCain was in his twenties and by the 1970s, when the first microcomputers came on the market, he was attending the National War College. In 1981 IBM released the first PC and John McCain was getting ready to run for Congress. In 2000, the first time John McCain ran for president, we’d already seen the rise of Microsoft, eBay, Amazon, Napster and the tech boom.

It’s now 2008, John McCain is running for president again, and he freely admits that he does not know how to use computers. While he may occasionally do “a Google” it’s his wife who apparently has to actually do the clicking and typing for him.

Perhaps I’m being ageist, or simply ignoring as a computer capable person myself how many people still struggle with computers. But in the 21st century, isn’t it perhaps important for the leader of the free world to know how to use a computer?