Poor Al Gore truly stepped in it eight years ago when he described his involvement in government internet incentives as taking "the initiative in creating" the Web. Republicans gleefully inflated and mocked his apparent egocentrism, and Gore barely recovered before the election.

Now John McCain's chief economic adviser may just have done the same thing.



McCain claimed on TV this morning that his chairmanship of the Senate commerce committee during the 1990s helped educate him on the financial markets - an assertion that prompted reporters to ask economic adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin for some examples.

Holtz-Eakin responded, incredibly, by holding up a BlackBerry. "He did this," the McCain adviser 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.

According to that logic, McCain must have been at least partially responsible for other technological innovations that emerged while he sat on the Commerce committee. Senator, thanks for the iPod and "a Google"!

(But wait: This also means Obama was responsible for the lack of homeland-security breaches in the US since 2004, right? Because he's been on the Senate homeland security committee...)

UPDATE: Thanks to commenter USA4Obama for pointing out McCain's responses to the policy site sciencedebate2008.com, in which he claims to -- wait for it -- have helped create wi-fi. Seriously.

Under my guiding hand, Congress developed a wireless spectrum policy that spurred the rapid rise of mobile phones and Wi-Fi technology that enables Americans to surf the web while sitting at a coffee shop, airport lounge, or public park.

Now, McCain has a point: he is a chief sponsor of a congressional plan to encourage rural communities to develop faster broadband networks.

But does he really want to remind folks of Global Crossing, the telecom company that went bankrupt on dreams of expanding the wireless spectrum?

McCain chaired the commerce committee during Global Crossing's heyday, before it had to work out a controversial government settlement to unload its wireless rights, and the senator was among the bigger recipients of the company's political donations. That in itself wouldn't be notable - except, as the Wall Street Journal (link only available with Factiva or Nexis service) reported in 2002, McCain got $30,000 from Global Crossing executives in a single day after sending regulators a favourable letter about the company.

I guess you could call that a "guiding hand"...