Talk about your crazy claims quickly claiming traction.

Obviously this speech was written by someone else, and the president was just reading it. But regardless of how you feel about Obama personally and/or his policies, the flap over whether our -loving president knows how to operate an iPad proves at least part of his point: The Web is the great magnifier of the trivial, the inane, and the inaccurate.

Personally, I am heartened by the fact our president does not spend his limited leisure time playing Grand Theft Auto. Including the iPad alongside the Xbox and the PlayStation in that speech, however, was a bad idea. It's true the iPad currently is primarily an entertainment device. But it and other may prove to be a great deal more, assuming they gain traction in schools. E-textbooks and ubiquitous mobile Internet access are here to stay.

Sadly, what's also here to stay: deliberately distorting someone's message to score political points, and then buttering those distortions all over the Web. That's why having a brain and knowing how to use it comes in handy -- the larger point many appear to have missed.

.