Is It Important for the President to Know How to Use a Computer?

I find it hard to believe in this day and age that just about anyone--even a 70-year-old presidential candidate--especially a 70-year-old presidential candidate--doesn't know how to use a computer. In this video, McCain is asked whether he uses a PC or a Mac, and he responds he is "illiterate." (He then is asked what his favorite movie was "this year", and he answers "Viva Zapata,"a 56-year-old, black and white, monophonic movie. Hell, at least it was a talkie!)

Much debate will occur this election season about John McCain's age. I'm less concerned that he's 70 than that he'd be 78 at the completion of two terms, should he win. More concerning than his age is whether he can understand the way the world is changing. Sure, he can rely on assistants to check the news and correspond with advisers via email, but how can John McCain understand the social and political implications of Internet trends such as social media, user-generated content, and blogging?

A couple months ago, a protester being imprisoned sent a brief Twitter about his plight, and he was released thanks to the political pressure and publicity generated by his brief broadcast SMS. Tell that story to McCain, and he won't be able to make any sense out of it! If McCain were told that the RedCross was informing people about its Iowa flood relief efforts by using a blog, Twitter, Flickr, RSS feeds, and Utterz mobile audio, he'd need every last one of those terms explained to him!

We're moving into a new age of communication, information sharing, and collaboration. Shouldn't we expect our president to have some experience with the tools we Americans use every day? To me, this isn't a trivial thing like the first George Bush being amazed at a grocery store scanner 10 years after they became common in stores. The president's knowledge or ignorance of grocery technology won't impact his decisions; but to me, the Internet is so integral to daily life and to international politics, it's hard for me to imagine our president will lead us into the second decade of the millennium thinking a pocket calculator is the latest and greatest in personal technology.

What do you think? Should our next president have at least passing knowledge of blogging, email, the Drudge Report, LiveLeak, and way international borders are becoming less relevant as data, information, news, and collaboration spreads across the globe?