Hey, Obama – here’s the main reason why McCain can’t send a damn email

Barack Obama, in an effort at getting more “aggressive” against John McCain, is running an ad accusing McCain of being so “yesterday” because, among other things, he doesn’t know much about computers and relies on aides to send his emails for him:

After a day of joint appearances and a respite from election ad wars in recognition of Sept. 11, Barack Obama and John McCain’s campaigns are back at it — firing ads at one another and preparing for the final 50-plus days until Nov. 4.

No sooner had McCain released yet another ad defending Sarah Palin than Obama fired off a new attack on McCain, paired with a commercial in which Obama speaks to the camera urging “real change.”

The one certain to grab most attention starts with a picture of a much younger McCain and says: “1982, John McCain goes to Washington. Things have changed in the last 26 years but McCain hasn’t.”

It proceeds to ridicule the Republican for his self-confessed inability to send e-mails and vague grasp of computers. And of course there is a picture of President Bush, looking a little goofy, standing next to McCain.

The two spots come as Obama campaign manager David Plouffe issued an e-mail in which he attacks McCain for having “shown that he is willing to go into the gutter to win this election.”

Here’s the ad:

Groovy, eh?

Well, let’s take a look at the main reason why John McCain can’t send emails (from a March 2000 Boston Globe article):

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain’s encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He’s an avid fan – Ted Williams is his hero – but he can’t raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

Hat tip to Jonah Goldberg, who writes in response:

In a similar vein I guess it’s an outrage that the blind governor of New York David Patterson doesn’t know how to drive a car. After all, transportation issues are pretty important. How dare he serve as governor while being ignorant of what it’s like to navigate New York’s highways.

Just who is the genius who runs Obama’s campaign ad research department anyway? Does he even know? I have a possible answer: MSDNC’s Rachel Maddow, by chance? Furthermore, as TNR’s John B. Judis wonders, just who is Obama trying to influence with this ad? Does he believe that insulting the millions of Americans (including the senior citizen community) who also don’t know how to use a computer, much less send an email, is a way to win votes?

Via Memeorandum.

Update – 9:13 PM: Suitably Flip finds another article from 2000:

In certain ways, McCain was a natural Web candidate. Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee and regarded as the U.S. Senate’s savviest technologist, McCain is an inveterate devotee of email. His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. “She’s a whiz on the keyboard, and I’m so laborious,” McCain admits.

Smooth move, Obama.

Now, I just know that the MSM will be johnny on the spot interviewing senior after senior to find out how offended they are over Obama’s ad, just like they did to community organizers after Gov. Palin’s “insult” to them during her VP acceptance speech, right? Riiiiiight.

Related: Jimmie at the Sundries Shack unloads on Obama.