See, here's what we love about AtAT viewers: yesterday, when we proposed that Apple use the slogan "world's aluminumest, most perforated personal computer" to market the G5 in the UK without running afoul of truth-in-advertising watchdog groups, fully four dozen people wrote in with the correction that, in the UK, the word should be "aluminiumest"-- while only one took issue with the fact that neither "aluminumest" nor "aluminiumest" are words in the first place. If you ask us, there's something downright poetic about a universal laserlike focus on one tiny detail like a single missing geographically-dictated letter (and such a skinny letter, too) while the larger problem goes almost completely unaddressed. Why, it's almost like... like... the U.S. Presidential election campaigns!

And so, in keeping with the spirit of missing the forest for the woefully inconsequential trees, we may as well revisit the single most important utterly trivial issue yet to arise on the campaign trail: the computing platform preference of the candidates. Apparently the woman who raised the "Mac or PC?" topic at last week's Rock the Vote Democratic debate has been hounded for asking such an irrelevant question, but faithful viewer Joe Stern notes that according to the Washington Post, she was spoon-fed the question by CNN in a feeble attempt to relate. Word to your mother.

Anyway, the genie's out of the bottle now, so it's important that we get the details of each candidate's platform preference correct. Faithful viewer Don Livingstone was the first to note that, while it's not noted in the transcript, John Kerrey also replied that he uses a Mac-- this has been confirmed by several AtAT viewers who watched the debate live. So that means there are two Mac-using Democratic hopefuls, which will come as a sharp relief to all of you who wanted to vote for a Mac user but just couldn't see your way clear to voting for someone with hair like that.

Meanwhile, the nature of that photo of Bush near a PowerBook (i.e. "Is it his, or is he just phoning the bomb squad?") has finally come to light: faithful viewer David Poves notes a ZDNN interview in which Bush plainly states, "I guess I'm not supposed to be talking about brands, but since Michael Dell is my good friend and Dell is a Texas company, I'm the owner of a Dell computer." ("I know I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm doing it anyway." We suspect we'll soon be getting email from viewers in the United Nations telling us that they're experiencing the wildest sense of déjà vu.)

So by his own admission, not only is Bush not a Mac user, but he's also one of Mike Dell's bestest buddies-- which means that if you had been planning on voting for him solely because of conclusions drawn from his proximity to a PowerBook in a single photograph, you may want to make alternate plans. Incidentally, Bush says he only uses his Dell for email, checking the weather, and "occasionally... for research"-- which prompted ZDNN to respond, apparently without a hint of irony, "You sound pretty tech-savvy." Wow. Slow-pitch softball, anyone?