Mac Fathered BlackBerry, Staffer Claims

Barack Obama’s campaign was quick to mock a staffer’s claim today that John McCain helped create the BlackBerry, the Hill reports. An aide suggested that the Republican’s service on the Senate Commerce Committee, which concerns itself with telecommunications, qualified him as a father of the ubiquitous device—recalling Al Gore’s 2000 paternity claim on the internet, as Dems were quick to note.

“The claim that he invented the BlackBerry would have been the most preposterous thing said all week,” an Obama spokesman said, if not for McCain’s assurance that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” yesterday. McCain laughed off the claim, the Wall Street Journal notes. “He would not claim to be the inventor of anything, much less the BlackBerry,” a campaign rep said. “This was obviously a boneheaded joke by a staffer.” (More John McCain stories.)