Yes, we’ve all found it hilarious that John McCain invented the BlackBerry. Especially since unlike Al Gore and the internet, McCain can’t even claim his brilliant leadership greased the skids for its invention, what with the BlackBerry being a Canadian invention and all. But the best part is even if you wanted to credit the person who helped open up America’s airwaves to broadband technology, that person wouldn’t be John McCain:
[…]McCain’s work on these issues was pretty awful: “When McCain took over his second tenure of Senate Commerce Committee, the United States ranked fourth in broadband penetration. In 2007, two years after he had given up that position, the United States had dropped to 15th in the world.”
McCain was also one of only five senators to vote against the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
The Obama campaign, now solidly on message, told reporters, “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.”
But stepping back, Holtz-Eakin’s argument is, on its face, unusually absurd. He was responding to a question about the crisis on Wall Street, and McCain’s background as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Pressed to explain the relevance of McCain’s experience, Holtz-Eakin pointed to McCain having “created” the BlackBerry.
The underlying point, of course, is that McCain created the regulatory environment that made innovations like this possible. But that’s foolish — BlackBerry was developed in Canada, this has nothing to do with the collapse of investment banks and insurance companies, and McCain didn’t do anything to promote innovation anyway.
That’s not change America can believe in, my friends.
But he had the experience necessary to invent the Blackberry because Alaska is very close to Canada.
Les – I LOLed.