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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

McCain Invented the Blackberry

posted by on September 16 at 9:00 AM

In case you were wondering about whether John McCain knows how to use a computer, his spokesman goes one better:

Asked what work John McCain did as Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that helped him understand the financial markets, the candidate’s top economic adviser wielded visual evidence: his BlackBerry.

“He did this,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin told reporters this morning, holding up his BlackBerry. “Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce committee so you’re looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that’s what he did.”

The Obama response:

If John McCain hadn’t said that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong’ on the day of one of our nation’s worst financial crises, the claim that he invented the BlackBerry would have been the most preposterous thing said all week

And, as everyone’s adding as this whips around the web: Research in Motion, the company that makes Blackberries, is not even an American company.

RSS icon Comments

1

I bet y'all called bullshit on the Republicans when they attacked Gore for his out of context "I invented the internet" remark.

Pot, meet kettle.

Posted by Rotten666 | September 16, 2008 9:01 AM
2

And Al Gore invented the internet.....

I think some people are going to try to take this out of context. Sorry, but of all the idiotic things McCain said this is probably not one you want to go down. Unless you are willing to take Gore on with his claim of inventing the internet. And if you are willing to call bullshit on Gore then you can call bullshit on McCain for this one.

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | September 16, 2008 9:03 AM
3

Canadians invented the blackberry! McCain has truly gone too far, and will most certainly lose the Canadian vote.

Posted by ams | September 16, 2008 9:04 AM
4

Aaaaaaand what the fuck does the blackberry have to do with the financial industry, anyway?

Posted by K | September 16, 2008 9:05 AM
5

This is ridiculous. Anything that moves across state lines is governed by the Commerce Clause. Using this reasoning, McCain can claim credit for cheese and washing machines and should have to deny resposibility for drug and gun trafficking. Completely ridiculous.

Posted by Matthew | September 16, 2008 9:12 AM
6

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." --Al Gore, March 9, 1999, interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

That's the actual quote, in which Gore was saying, however clumsily, that he supported legislation that led to the creation of the Internet.

Thank you Snopes, and shut up already, John Bailo.

Posted by Jeff Stevens | September 16, 2008 9:19 AM
7

if only mccain himself had said it instead of a flunky.

Posted by max solomon | September 16, 2008 9:34 AM
8


McCain is absolutely right...we're actually witnessing the largest redistribution of wealth...from the top to the middle...in history.

That's why rich people like Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Gore are scared. They are seeing their large salaries and automatic sinecures go down the toilet.

Let's face it...most of the "radicals" in Seattle are the scions of rich folk. They rant around about this freedom or that, but mostly their pretty much part of the Oppression Class.

Now that Baby's Little Trust fund is sinking faster than Chelsea Clinton's Avenue A investments, they're all "worried about the economy".

Tough luck you sloths. Go and get a job and stop creating Middlebrow art.

Posted by John Bailo | September 16, 2008 9:40 AM
9

"Let's face it...most of the "radicals" in Seattle are the scions of rich folk."

nothing like a broad generalization to validate whatever point your trying to make.

Dumb.

Posted by Rotten666 | September 16, 2008 9:48 AM
10

McCain is absolutely right...we're actually witnessing the largest redistribution of wealth...from the top to the middle...in history.

Where the fuck did you get that idea? Republican fairy tales?

Posted by John Bailo's syphilitic cock | September 16, 2008 9:59 AM
11

John Bailo:

Please explain how this 'trickle down' effect has worked? Imperical evidence states that people and businesses prosper under Democrats and lose under Republicans.

We are in this mess right now because the GOP controlled house and senate in 1999 took away legislation from the glass-seagall act. Written by Phil Gramm, McCain's economic advisor until July 18th of this year.

I bet you still think Alan Greenspan is a "great economic mind" don't you? God, you are deluded.

Posted by Original Monique | September 16, 2008 10:00 AM
12

Also JB: Largest redistribution of wealth??
WHERE? People losing homes and investment banks going up? Stocks crashing worldwide because of the US?

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!!

Posted by Original Monique | September 16, 2008 10:05 AM
13

My understanding of the Blackberry story is that a Canadian company invented it, and then an American company, whose sole business model is patent piracy, not innovation, tried to sue them into extinction, and Commerce helped. So McCain's role in that saga is as professional STIFLER of innovation, not creator of it.

Posted by Fnarf | September 16, 2008 10:06 AM
14

Yeah, because all of us SLOGers are just rolling around in greenbacks like Scrooge McDuck doing the backstroke.

Why just yesterday, as I sat beside my natatorium, reading the New Republic and quaffing my daily ration of blood-of-newly-baptized-infant (keeps my skin TIGHT!), I was lamenting to my valet Carl about the implosion of the U.S. financial markets, and how the situation had absolutely forced me to diversify my considerable tax-sheltered Cayman Island accounts into international stocks, Chinese-backed government securities, and Russian oil futures - quel horrible! Strangely, Carl just gave me a look that, if he hadn't come so highly recommended from the agency, I might have mistaken for impertinence, or even outright hostility. However, I quickly brushed the thought aside, ordered another glass of infant-blood, and sent him on his way.

Besides, according to McSame's own standards, Obama would need to earn another $1mm a year to be considered "rich".

So, J.B., if you want to sound like as much of a clueless numbskull as the ticket you're supporting, keep it up; you're doing great work in that regard.

Posted by COMTE | September 16, 2008 10:10 AM
15

Is it totally inappropriate that I wish Obama had signed his statement with Black Barry?

Posted by kerri harrop | September 16, 2008 10:12 AM
16

@15 - that had me laughing out loud!

Posted by Old_Mama_Chips | September 16, 2008 10:34 AM
17

@13: nice point. I'd forgot the BB was a Canadian invention.

Not to mention that probably an easy 80-90% of other cellphones are invented in Scandinavia (Nokia, Ericsson) or Asia (Sony, LG).

Posted by K | September 16, 2008 10:35 AM
18

Well, if we have to take yet another self-aggrandizing statement from an executive-leader-politician at face value, then fine. But those sorts of people need to take claim for the bad, as well as the good. One coin, two sides. No more of the SAME; leaders taking credit for sucesses, but fast with the blame of others for failure.

I give Mcsame the blackberry thing, but McCain needs to step up and, as Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, take the blame for Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. Yeah, thats right bitches, Chairman Mccain did invent the blackberry, and collapsed AIG. tit-for-tat

Posted by Phenics | September 16, 2008 10:58 AM
19

John is absolutely right.

Of course, the Obamatrons here will claim that their Messiah is responsible because only a coloured could invent the Blackberry. Just the sort of libtard logic we've come to expect over the past few decades.

Posted by Free Thinker | September 16, 2008 11:46 AM
20

I'm pretty new here, so maybe there's something going on that I don't know about, but I'm pretty sure that John Bailo is creating some "middlebrow art" himself. It does have just enough truth to be revealing and yet it is patently ridiculous. Clever, but not serving any real purpose except to get people angry. I'd give it a B-.

If you think you are telling some kind of truth, then I withdraw my statement and can echo everyone else effectively calling you a douchenozzle.

Posted by appreciator | September 16, 2008 12:05 PM
21

Free Thinkers should be able to see the obvious, not
babble some lame attempt at Pee Wee Herman style childish rants.

Posted by 19zEpicThinkingFail | September 16, 2008 12:15 PM
22

Somebody owes somebody a coke.

Posted by Amy Jo | September 16, 2008 1:36 PM
23

Free Thinker is actually doing a performance-art piece impersonating the author of The Turner Diaries.

Posted by Greg | September 16, 2008 6:06 PM

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