A debate has been bubbling in the political blogosphere about John McCain's admitted computer illiteracy and whether the next Commander in Chief needs to be net-savvy. This potential weakness is magnified given that Barack Obama is a plugged-in guy. The NYT's Mark Leibovich sums up the debate today.
Here's the "pro" argument: a tech-literate president would be in touch with the day-to-day experience of most citizens and wouldn't appear to be so, well, old. Stanford futurist Paul Saffo says that the user experience brings with it an intuitive understand of how the country lives.
Here's the "anti" argument: the president doesn't have to know how to actually do anything technologically, he just has to understand the big picture concepts. After all, he's got a lot of smart people that can handle the web stuff and in all likelihood no president, not even Obama, will have the time to cruise the net, answer his own emails, set up his own blog and so forth.
But none of these arguments touch on the real issue, which is that the Internet, email, text messaging and even microblogging tools such as Twitter are efficient and even mandatory forms of communication, more so for the president of the United States than anybody else.
Tom Wheeler, telecommunications entrepreneur, investor, Obama fundraiser and amateur historian (as well, briefly, my former boss) recently published a book "Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: The Untold Story of how Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War." In citing Wheeler, Leibovich briefly touches on precisely this point.
Lincoln’s mastery of the telegraph machine not only put him well ahead of most of his constituents on the technology curve but also allowed him to speak directly to his generals and track their actions(emphasis added)
Do we really want a president that has to completely rely on staff to communicate with everyone? Because that's what we'd get if the president doesn't do email or texting or Twitter. Do we want a president that has to completely rely on staff to find out what blogs are saying or to watch breaking news or get up to speed on any particular issue?
Granted, that's probably what we've always had and have now (George Bush came under criticism a while back for delegating even dead-tree newspaper reading to his staff). But times have changed and continue to change at a breakneck pace. When everybody in the U.S. and indeed the whole world is surfing the net, emailing, texting, IM'ing and Twittering, should the president of the U.S. be the only person who doesn't do anything of this?
Ben Smith surveyed political techies to garner suggestions about how McCain can rectify his tech deficit or at least appear to do so. One Republican consultant suggested that McCain walk around with a Bluetooth headset while another said that McCain should stand in line for an iPhone.
My favorite reaction, though, is this one:
“For the love of G-d, don't let him be photographed using the web as if it's something to photograph him doing,” e-mailed a Republican consultant and blogger, Karol Sheinin. “It will just remind everyone of that time they taught their grandpa about e-mail.”
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