Yesterday,
I explained why John McCain's "Googilliteracy" won't actually hamper
his ability to communicate, get information or grasp tech-related
policy problems as president. But while the Arizona senator may not
need to take a Computer Science class anytime soon, he should probably
consider enrolling in Geography 101. At a town hall today
in Albuquerque, N.M., McCain spent a considerable amount of time
discussing to Russia's recent efforts to bully Czechoslovakia. The only
problem? Czechoslovakia hasn't, you know, existed for 15 years.
This would be a minor, nitpicky issue, except that a) McCain is running as a foreign policy expert and would slam Obama as a novice for a similar mistake, and b) it isn't the first time he's mixed up this particular geopolitical detail. Here's McCain at a GOP debate in October 2007: "The first thing I would do is make sure that we have a missile defense
system in place in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and I don't care what his
objections are to it." (Including his inability to locate Czechoslovakia without going back in time!) Three months ago, McCain repeated the promise, telling Don Imus that he would "work closely with Czechoslovakia and Poland and other
countries" (like Yugoslavia, perhaps?) to install the European Missile Defense System in Poland. And yesterday McCain again used the word "Czechoslovakia" in a conversation with reporters in Phoenix about our relationship with Russia. Today's New Mexico mention, then, makes it twice in two days. Czechoslovakia hasn't seen this much action since the Velvet Revolution.
For
the record, Senator, the country you're referring to is now called the
Czech Republic. (Slovakia takes up the other half of what was Czechslovakia.) The Czech Republic is a landlocked, pluralist, multi-party parliamentary
democracy slightly smaller than South Carolina. In the west is Bohemia,
with its rolling plains and low mountains; in the east is the hillier
terrain of Moravia. The Czech Republic's main exports are machinery and
transport equipment, and the country boasts 122 airports--including 45 with paved runways. If you're wondering how I found this information, I'll tell you: Google. It's a "search engine" located "on the Internet."
Only took 0.14 seconds to produce 164 million results. You should try it sometime.
