McCain and Computers: Is It a Leadership Thing?

My colleague Tom Shoop continues a debate in Government Executive's Fed Blog on just how tech savvy government's top leaders need to be. In his blog, he writes about John McCain's comments to The New York Times that he relies on his wife and two aides to surf the Internet for him. But he is "learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. . . . I don't expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need."

Last year, I wrote about Defense Department Secretary Robert Gates' description of himself as a "very low-tech person" and not using e-mail.

Shoop, who references the Gates' comments, too, wonders how leaders can make it through the day without using a computer. (Please check out his blog and comment.)

Last year, a reader, who had worked at the Pentagon, wondered the same thing after reading the blog item about Gates. In a posted comment, he (or she) wrote:

Recently I had a boss who didn't use e-mail either, whose calendar was booked full most days, and who was not readily available to discuss the day's issues. The result was he was out of the loop most of the time, he didn't know the pressing issues of the day, and he was rarely involved in decisions unless it was a very critical issue. No way to run a trillion-dollar operation in my opinion.

Ironically, the same commenter wrote that the "the smart [Pentagon leaders] that do use e-mail don't say much in them because they have learned that senators like McCain will subpoena them later."