![\"Cable](\"\/Pix\/Humor\/mccain-cable-monster.jpg\")
Last month John McCain said that Americans are tired of the Internet. It’s highly unlikely that he was actually speaking for all Americans, or even anything more than a small brood of Luddites. It is more likely that he himself is tired of the Internet, or perhaps just tired, period. He has never been particularly fond of it, even as he chaired the Senate committee responsible for regulating it.<\/p>\n
Amanda Terkel has authored a pretty comprehensive review<\/a> of McCain’s tech resume. Her article reveals a man who is both uncomfortable with technological progress and beholden to the big corporate interests who seek to dominate the industry. McCain’s pronouncements on the subject, like the one last month, are laughable. He has confessed that he is “an illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get,”<\/em> and that he “never felt the particular need to e-mail.”<\/em><\/p>\n Terkel points out that the United States has fallen behind most of the world with regard to broadband policy. Our failure to be competitive in this arena will cost us the loss of millions of potential new jobs. It will hamstring our children. And it will insure that we run with the back of the pack in opportunities for business growth.<\/p>\n McCain has led the way to the rear by opposing legislation that would keep the Internet open (Network Neutrality). Plus he has promoted the sort of deregulation that has permitted media companies to consolidate so extensively that there are now only a handful of giant players left. McCain advanced this anti-competitive agenda while claiming to be free of conflicts or personal motive. Unfortunately, Terkel proves that that isn’t the truth:<\/p>\n “In 1998 and 1999, McCain wrote at least 15 letters to the FCC, urging members to take action on issues that had potentially major consequences for his campaign donors. For example, McCain wrote two letters in April and May 1999, asking the commission to make a decision on a $62 billion pending merger between telephone companies Ameritech and SBC Communications. The merger went through later that year. A few weeks before the April letter, Richard Notebaert, the head of Ameritech, co-hosted a fundraiser for McCain. He took in approximately $50,000. Just before the May letter, SBC and Ameritech officials contributed or solicited about $120,000 in donations for McCain’s campaign.” “The current campaign cycle is also shaping up to be lucrative. U.S. Telecom Association president and CEO Walter B. McCormick Jr., Sprint CEO Daniel R. Hesse, and Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan G. Seidenberg have each raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for McCain’s campaign. AT&T executive vice president for federal relations Timothy McKone has raised at least $500,000.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Terkel’s article, along with the other evidence cited here, should cause anyone who values the Internet to be suspicious of McCain’s plans. He is not merely ignorant, he is aggressively antagonistic toward an open, accessible, World Wide Web. He must not be given an authority over it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last month John McCain said that Americans are tired of the Internet. It’s highly unlikely that he was actually speaking for all Americans, or even anything more than a small brood of Luddites. It is more likely that he himself is tired of the Internet, or perhaps just tired, period. He has never been particularly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,152,1,7],"tags":[368,103,367,245],"class_list":["post-1014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-media","category-election","category-general","category-internet-freedom","tag-jack-abramoff","tag-john-mccain","tag-ralph-reed","tag-vicki-iseman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-gm","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":852,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=852","url_meta":{"origin":1014,"position":0},"title":"John McCain’s Ad: Connecting The Dots","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/30\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Upon closer examination of John McCain's new campaign ad, some interesting messages become apparent... Announcer: Keep that faith. Keep your courage. Stick together. Stay strong. Do not yield [...] we'll never surrender. Was that McCain or Jim Jones? No matter. The ad goes on to ask, \"What must a president\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1028,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1028","url_meta":{"origin":1014,"position":1},"title":"Barack Obama Picks Joe Biden – So Does John McCain","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/23\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It didn't take long for news of Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate to stir John McCain's campaign PR machine. The first comments from McCain's people were released quickly and contained a fair measure of respect for Biden himself. In fact, they relied wholly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":920,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=920","url_meta":{"origin":1014,"position":2},"title":"John McCain’s Secret Medical Records Revealed","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/23\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"After more than a year of stalling, John McCain is finally making his medical records public. However, the process by which he is releasing the data suggests that he hopes it doesn't become too public. His campaign has chosen the Friday prior to the three day Memorial Day weekend for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":955,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=955","url_meta":{"origin":1014,"position":3},"title":"John McCain Says Terrorists Threaten Our Very Existence","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/23\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Struggling in recent election polls, John McCain is resorting to the old and familiar Republican campaign motivator - unrelenting fear. When asked in an interview with Fortune magazine what he sees as the gravest long-term threat to the U.S. economy, McCain answered... \"Well, I would think that the absolute gravest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":960,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=960","url_meta":{"origin":1014,"position":4},"title":"John McCain’s Truth Squad","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/30\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"On Face the Nation this weekend, Gen. Wesley Clark made the obvious observation that John McCain's captivity in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp was not a qualification to be president. McCain's ordeal was certainly horrific, but not leadership training. Clark's comments will no doubt be controversial, but the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1023,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1023","url_meta":{"origin":1014,"position":5},"title":"McCain’s Spokesman Doth Protest Too Much","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/21\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"After months of assailing Barack Obama as an elitist, the truth started to leak out today when John McCain was asked how many homes he owns. McCain, inexplicably, couldn't answer the question and told the reporter that someone on his staff would get back to him. [The answer is seven,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"Maverick](\"\/Pix\/Humor\/mccain-maverick.jpg\")
McCain’s association with lobbyists is well documented<\/a>, if not well reported by the media. He was embroiled in his own scandal some years ago surrounding the corrupt banker Charles Keating. Next week he is attending a fundraiser<\/a> hosted by Ralph Reed, a prolific lobbyist and an associate of convicted scammer Jack Abramoff. And in this week of tabloid revelations about John Edwards and his mistress, it should be noted that McCain also had speculation swirling<\/a> about his relationship with telecom lobbyist Vicki Iseman. Unlike the bulldogging National Enquirer, the New York Times dropped the Iseman story after getting yapped at by angry Republicans. But the more salacious elements of the Iseman affair are not really that important. What is most relevant is that she is another lobbyist for closing off the Internet to everyone but her wealthy multinational clients, and that she was indisputably chummy with McCain. Curiously, she has since vanished from the face of earth. She has been so well hidden that even milk cartons don’t have a picture of her. Has the McCain camp shuttled her off to Dick Cheney’s fabled “Undisclosed Location?”<\/em><\/p>\n