Senator Internet Policy Subcommittee Has Never Sent an Email

[dragon]

I say he's qualified for the position. How the hell do these people get their positions

US Senator and delicate southern flower Lindsey Graham has, in his own words, never sent an email in his life. He also just so happens to be a member of the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. Naturally.

The bizarre statement was made during Graham's appearance on Meet the Press earlier this morning, after host Chuck Todd asked the senator if he himself had a private email account (in reference to the recent Hilary Clinton debacle). To which Graham responded:

I don't email. You can have every email I've ever sent. I've never sent one. [laughter] I don't know what that makes me.

Well, Senator, in addition to making you less technologically adept than the nation's legion of chain letter-loving racist grandfathers, it also makes you wildly unqualified to be deciding on anything related to internet policy. But then again, what else is new. [Huffington Post]

link

[Joun_Lord]

Sounds about right in a government where committees on women's rights are staffed almost fully by men, people deciding minority policies are almost entirely white, and those who choose how much of a hand-out poor "people" (their words, not mine) receive are rich people.

Though he could be lying. I've no doubt Mr Graham doesn't understand tech very well being an out of touch rich guy but very few people could go into modern politics without shooting emails left and right. Could be he's just saying "I don't understand that there newfangled electronical mail" to come off as a moron to appeal to anti-intellectual morons who think that any modern tech is evil, for pansies, or built by soulless commies. Of course thats probably just me applying probably far more intelligence to these bewbs then they actually have.

[Gandalf]

I would presume his staff would send all of his emails.

[Elheru Aran]

He's been in politics for the last twenty years and an Air Force (Reserve) officer before that, with a career in law. I can see him being in a position where pretty much every message he sends is through staff for a very long time. "Hey, (insert name of secretary), send a note by Senator So-and-so's office about that Wednesday meeting, I got a thing, can't make it"... stuff like that. E-mail was certainly around in the 90s but it didn't really take off for a while. So it's possible... a bit of a stretch, but possible.

It gets to be even more of a stretch if you consider personal emails, but again, his staff or his wife may handle that. My own grandfather rarely touches the computer-- he gets my grandmother to do most of that. Of course, he's 20 years (more or less) older than Senator Graham. Hillary Clinton is even older than he is (1947 versus 1955), and as the flop of an email scandal demonstrates, she's certainly capable of holding her own in that area (admittedly it's quite possible much of that came from Ms. Clinton's staff).

So frankly, he has no excuse holding a position of authority in a technological area where he has zero experience. But it's today's Congress, where experience is no prerequisite... only being white, male, and Republican.

[Pelranius]

Does Mr. Graham have a cellphone for the matter, or does he make his bag man carry one?

[Elheru Aran]

I did look up a couple articles on this, and in one there was a quote from him referring to using his phone to text. So he at least knows how to do that, which indicates he has a personal cell phone that he's adept enough with.

[Dartzap]

Must have been give the role by this chap.