The Screwups of Campaign '08

John McCain
Sept. 16, 2008

"He did this. Telecommunications of the United States, the premiere innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce Committee. So you're looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create. And that's what he did. He both regulated and deregulated the industry."

—McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, pointing to his BlackBerry, in an attempt to explain to reporters that McCain has experience dealing with the economy, specificially with his time on the Senate Commerce Committee. Another aide later called Holtz-Eakin's statement a "boneheaded" remark, on a par with Al Gore's much-lampooned claim that he had once invented the Internet. McCain made matters worse around the same time by asserting that his time on the Commerce committee gave him experience with virtually every aspect of the economy, when in fact other committees such as Finance and Banking oversee a great deal of that terrain.