McCain First Defined Celebrity

12 August 2008 |permalink | email article

THE former maverick describes Barack Obama as “the biggest celebrity in the world.” His new web ad mocks him as “bigger than the Beatles” while raising the issue of his sex appeal for the first time.

His respected former consultants John Weaver and Mike Murphy have been critical of his attack ads, suggesting the campaign should spend as much time building up McCain as tearing down Obama.

But McCain, not Obama, first gave the cult of celebrity new meaning in liberal Hollywood after he lost to George W. Bush in 2000 by taking unconventional stands for a Republican candidate.

Once authentic, for years he was a favorite with the media elite whom he now scorns as being too pro-Obama.

McCain became a near-regular on the late-night circuit, appearing regularly on David Letterman, Jay Leno and John Stewart, hosted “Saturday Night Live” and had a cameo in “Wedding Crashers” long before anyone heard of Obama.

When a liberal blog noted his campaign scrubbed from its web site an Associated Press story last year that described McCain as a “political celebrity,” why did he react by citing Obama’s new celebrity as a disqualifier for president?

The answer may be in part because his kind of puerile humor betrays the reality he has so few arrows in his quiver to effectively destroy Obama.

Quotes of the Day

“Russia can have at its borders only enemies or vassals.” –The late American diplomat-scholar George F. Kennan.

“Historians will come to view Aug. 8, 2008, as a turning point no less significant than Nov.9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. Russia’s attack on sovereign Georgian territory marked the official return of history, indeed to an almost 19th-century style of great power competition…” – Robert Kagan, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Let’s go with it.” Bill Clinton – not Hillary – issuing the decisive order to run the famous 3 a.m. ad which almost didn’t happen to settle a staff argument as his plane sat on a runway, one of many internal disclosures from her campaign in the The Atlantic’s September issue.

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