McCain Aide Claims Nominee ‘Helped Create’ BlackBerry

Does Senator McCain read the history books? Then he would know that it was the infamous Gore-invented-the-Internet myth that hurt the Democratic nominee in 2000. This is going to stick. Just like McCain's idiotic insistence that the economy is fundamentally sound.

Holtz-Eakin stirred these memories Tuesday as he held up his BlackBerry before reporters and said, “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.”

McCain’s campaign didn’t even try to back it up.

Asked what legislation McCain had worked on that might be used to justify the claim, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds dismissed the comments by Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director, as a bad turn at stand-up comedy by an adviser and nothing personally claimed by the candidate.

The reason for this lie is that McCain doesn't have much of a record to brag about as Senator all these years. They have to make it up.

A quick look at McCain’s work as Commerce chairman tells you why. Virtually all of his hearings were about other things: tobacco regulation, the “Y2K” challenge (remember Y2K?), trade with China, climate change, and pet causes such as media ownership and the Air Force’s decision to lease refueling tankers from Boeing. When he dealt with the telecommunications industry, it was usually on broader topics like competition and mergers.

This gaffe follows the statement that will haunt Mr.McCain the most in the days and weeks to come. It is a statement that guarantees that Barack Obama will be elected the next President of the United States.

"You know that there's been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall St. And it is -- people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think still -- the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult times."

Here is another perpspective:

Then they send his policy advisor out to argue that McCain knows this stuff because he used to be chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce -- and he bogusly claims that McCain is responsible for the creation of the Blackberry. This was widely mocked, such as by a former FCC chairman who points out that the Blackberry is the result of Canadian innovation, and had to be walked back. (Bonus trivia: McCain was replaced as Commerce chair by Ted "Tubes" Stevens. So there's a whole history of telecom expertise there.)

Also, he started using the phrase "enough is enough" as a tag in his speeches and ads, which Obama has been using for a month now. Oh, and as I've been predicting, the travelling press is starting to get pissed that McCain won't, you know, talk to the press.