Beyond the Dome

Well, that may have been the shortest-lived claim ever made about John McCain’s Senate record.

This morning, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, one of McCain’s top policy advisers, told reporters that McCain helped create the BlackBerry through his work as chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. How? By presiding over the committee that had jursidiction over the telecommunications industry at a time when this kind of stuff was taking place.

Within hours, McCain’s spokespeople were backing away from that remark so fast you could almost see the cartoon smoke where their bodies used to be.

“It was a joke by a staffer - people need to lighten up,” said spokesman Tucker Bounds. “John McCain heard about the comment and laughed himself. He isn’t laying claim to inventing anything - much less a BlackBerry. Our policy advisor is clearly better with economics than comedy.”

Of course, it was odd that none of the news organizations that reported the comment took it as a joke. But give the McCain people credit for one thing: At least they’re not trying to stick with a claim that they could never possibly back up.

A quick look at McCain’s work as Commerce chairman tells you why. Virtually all of his hearings were about other things: tobacco regulation, the “Y2K” challenge (remember Y2K?), trade with China, climate change, and pet causes such as media ownership and the Air Force’s decision to lease refueling tankers from Boeing. When he dealt with the telecommunications industry, it was usually on broader topics like competition and mergers.

The McCain campaign dealt with this incident as quickly as possible. Now, it will be interesting to see if they rein in the recent series of factually challenged ads that may do more damage to their credibility in the long run.