They did this with Bush when they went on and on about how he didn't know how a grocery checkout scanner worked, which was a lie of course but who [that REALLY matters] cares, right? It made a GREAT story.
Well we have a republican in the White House again and so it is time to drag out the "look how stupid he is" meme. The latest example is Slate with their "Two Years Into His Presidency and Donald Trump Still Doesn't Use Computers" story.
What an OUTSTANDING, fact based, hard hitting exposé,
There are just a few problems though, for any sane person that is.
#1, this photo that they used in the story:
#2, Though one can not be sure where Trump does it, he does tweet a LOT. He is doing that on some device. It might not be a desktop or laptop computer but it must be at the very least a tablet/iPad or a "smart-phone". Most people understand that a modern smart phone is a computer.
#3, Trump often tweets about what he sees/hears/reads on the news, on YouTube, and on Google. He accesses those "feeds" somehow...
Now to be fair, we are given some supporting evidence for the story's suposition:
1#, We have a tweet by a White House reporter:
Well, it is hard to argue with a NYT reporter on what the President is or is not capable of as they follow him around 24/7 right? And the NYT has absolutely NO reason in the world to make up something negative about the President, right?
#2, We are presented with another tweet from another reporter, this one ABC:
ABC News reporter Tara Palmeri, who also covers the White House, further explained that Trump sometimes reads on an iPad, which he refers to as “the flat one.”
sometimes Trump reads things on a iPad that he calls "the flat one" https://t.co/ZnbWRRSXY4— Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) August 28, 2018
Again, there is ABSOLUTELY no reason to suspect a ABC reporter for texting out something negative about this President, is there?
We are also treated to this insightful passage:
But more critically, this once again raises the question of whether the president of the United States knows how to use a laptop, and the answer seems to be “nope.” This is hardly the first time Trump’s tech habits, or lack thereof, have been talked about. As recently as 2016, it was reported that Trump rarely uses a computer: He preferred to read paper newspapers and magazines and to have emails printed out for him. He has Barron for the cyber, remember?
Based on this mountain of evidence this from Slate, you would have thought that Trump had replied to a question about a deleted/wiped server with "What, you mean with a cloth?" (nice Clinton dig, right?)
Look, maybe Trump uses a computer, maybe he does not. According to Forbes, at the start of 2017 Trump was worth $3.1 billion (with a B). The guy might just know a thing or two about how a business is run. He may have had a little bit of experience dealing with Government (at many levels), and may just understand the impact that Government, regulations, and taxes can have on business and the economy. With all that, do you honestly care if he knows how to install a Win10 service pack?
