Aide: John McCain Invented the BlackBerry

Sam Gustin writes: Yeah, it's silly season alright.

At a press conference this morning, a top aide to G.O.P. presidential nominee John McCain was asked about the candidate's computer illiteracy, the subject of a recent attack ad by the Obama campaign.

In response, top aide Douglas Holtz-Eakin waved his BlackBerry at reporters.

"He did this," Holtz-Eakin said, according to Politico. "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."

The BlackBerry mobile device, of course, is designed and manufactured by Research In Motion, a Canadian company.

It seems clear that what Holtz-Eakin was trying to say was not so much that McCain "created" the BlackBerry, but rather that he deserves some credit for the telecommunications revolution that has swept the world over the last 15 years, making widespread wireless service and internet adoption possible.

That suggestion may be even worse.

It's a bedrock principle of conservative free-market ideology that innovation occurs in the private sector, and that the government should stay out of the way.

Does John McCain, in his Senate Commerce Committee role, really want to take credit for the telecom "miracle" of the last 15 years?

Predictably, the Obama campaign pounced, calling the comment "preposterous." The McCain campaign later called Holt-Eakin's comment "bone-headed."

Don't you just love American politics?