The Associated Press is reporting that a McCain adviser said that the candidate was instrumental in the creation of the BlackBerry portable phone/Web browser:

At least that’s the contention of a top McCain policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Waving his BlackBerry personal digital assistant and citing McCain’s work as a senator, he told reporters Tuesday, “You’re looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create.”

McCain has acknowledged that he doesn’t know how to use a computer and can’t send e-mail, one of the BlackBerry’s prime functions.

Holtz-Eakin’s argument is similar to one advanced by [Al] Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000. Gore once boasted about “taking the initiative to create the Internet” through technological and educational policies. He later was mocked for claiming to have invented the Internet, although he never made such a claim.

Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said McCain’s service on and leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee put him at the intersection of a number of economic interests, including the telecommunications industry.

But another McCain adviser put Holtz-Eakin’s remarks into the proper context:

“He [McCain] would not claim to be the inventor of anything, much less the BlackBerry. This was obviously a boneheaded joke by a staffer,” adviser Matt McDonald said.