Jonathan Stein has an interesting piece in Mother Jones looking at John McCain's non-existent technology plans:

Political observers have made much of John McCain's admission that he cannot use a computer without assistance. In a campaign where McCain's opponent is 25 years younger than him, the factoid is potent ammunition for those who argue McCain is out of touch and too old for the presidency. But not knowing your way around a MacBook doesn't mean you can't be president. And McCain's personal Ludditism isn't a deal breaker for tech leaders. "I don't give a damn if McCain ever turns on a computer or not," Michael Arrington, coeditor of the blog TechCrunch wrote in January. "I just want a president who has the right top-down polices to support the information economy."

And where is McCain on tech policy? Not so shockingly, the computer-free senator's campaign is not as plugged in as his rival's.

Stein contrasts McCain's lack of attention to the issue with the detailed plans Obama has laid out for his administration, including the appointment of a "Tech Czar" to make sure government agencies are utilizing the best available technology and practices.

Last month at the New Politics Forum I attended in Houston, Washingtonian editor Garret Graff pointed out in his opening remarks how utterly ridiculous it is that America's technology industry is largely regulated by a bunch of geezers on the Senate Commerce Committee, including folks like former chairman Ted "The Internet is a Series of Tubes" Stevens, who was born 21 years before the television was invented.

McCain is on the Senate Commerce Committee as well, and it's a legitimate criticism that he doesn't have anything policy related to say about the single biggest driver of productivity and prosperity in the last decade.

But policy aside, if one of McCain's goals is to minimize the contrast in age between himself and Obama, he's certainly doing himself no favors by telling people he doesn't know how to use a computer. How hard is it to put a Blackberry on his hip and have him pretend to play with it every now and then?