Fit To Print

I’m John McCain and I Distort This Message

July 31st, 2008

It’s probably fair to call Barack Obama a celebrity, and his speeches certainly draw huge crowds. It is also true that Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are celebrities, and at one time, large audiences would pay to see Britney Spears in concert. But the 200,000 folks in Germany came to see an inspirational speaker they hoped would make the world a better place. When admiration turns to idolatry, that is a bad thing, but there is a substantive reason that Obama generates standing room only events.

If Britney Spears announced she was going to give a speech on America’s global role in the 21st century, fully clothed, I don’t think 200,000 people would show up to chant her name and hear what she had to say. So I’m not sure how convincing the “Obama is a celebrity and celebrities are bad” argument is. Sadly, the use of syllogisms by the McCain camp, even fallacious ones, is a more sophisticated line of attack than a lot of the stuff they’ve been doing recently. They’re still being dishonest, but it’s a more subtle dishonesty than saying “al-Maliki’s 16 month withdrawal timetable is nothing like Obama’s 16 month timetable, and who cares what ol Mal says, anyway.”

Incidentally, watching campaigns go nuclear on youtube turns out to be more fun than apartment hunting on craigslist.

Entry Filed under: Politics