Picking on the handicapped

It’s always been considered impolite to pick on or humiliate those who are handicapped in some way.  Of late, it’s also been a PC faux pas, extending far beyond mere manners.  Yet in the last two days, the Democrats have done this twice.  The first was just Biden being Biden (and I think he recovered with some grace and charm from his humiliating error), but the second is less excusable.

The Obama campaign decided to make McCain look really old by having an attack ad about the fact that he’s been in politics since 1982 (oooh, scary) and that he doesn’t use email.  The 1982 attack sags a bit before the fact that Biden’s been in politics since 1973, but the ad really collapses over something the Obama campaign should have known:  McCain doesn’t use a computer, not because he’s an aged idiot, but because he was so severely beaten and tortured by the Vietnamese that he can’t do many simple life skills, such as combing his hair and tying his shoes.  Typing is also impossible.

As I said, this was not just some goofy mistake from a gaffe machine.  This was a low blow, involving something a well-informed campaign would have understood and left alone.