"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."– Bill Burton
Obama campaign spokesman
the point here is not that anyone believes john mccain invented the blackberry, jeff, although if you actually listen to the exchange between the reporter and mccain's conomic policy adviser douglas holtz-eakin, it certainly isn't a joke.
ReplyDeletefrom cnet news:
"He did this," economic policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin told reporters, referring to a BlackBerry, according to a report on Politico.com. "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."
holtz-eakin is quite sincere in trying to point to legislation that helped to create the environment for innovation like the blackberry. it was just a clumsy way to do it. thus, mccain invented the blackberry. just like al gore created the internet (which gore didn't say either.)
the larger point here is that as absurd as that statement might be, if taken totally at face value, it's nowhere near as preposterous as the statement,
"the fundamentals of our economy are strong."
and if you really believe all the backpedalling -- that mccain was talking about the workers in this country as "the fundamnetals" -- then i've got a bridge in alaska to sell you.