Chill, Everybody. Paris Hilton's No Willie Horton

August 07, 2008

Why is everyone beating up on John McCain?

A week after it debuted, the Britney Spears/Paris Hilton ad still has legs. The Republican spot juxtaposes images of the tabloid sensations with Barack Obama's rally in Berlin, claiming that the Democratic presidential nominee is "the biggest celebrity in the world," but not ready to lead.

Ms. Hilton responded with her own video, released on funnyordie.com. "That wrinkly, white-haired guy used me in his ad, which I guess means I'm running for president," she declares, from her poolside chair.

"So thanks for the endorsement, white-haired dude, and I want America to know I'm, like, totally ready to lead."

The McCain campaign's latest "celebrity" ads - one segues from Mr. Obama giving a speech to Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea - have prompted many of Mr. McCain's critics to accuse him of abandoning his pledge to run a respectful, issues-based campaign, resorting instead to the take-no-prisoners strategy that adviser Karl Rove used to install and maintain George W. Bush in the White House.

Mr. McCain's advisers have "turned Mr. Straight Talk into Mr. Desperate Straits," the always acerbic Maureen Dowd opined in The New York Times. "It's not a good trade."

Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post lamented Mr. McCain's "desperate, ugly campaign" against Mr. Obama.

While in London, the venerable Times sniffed: "Whether or not the film makes Mr. Obama look smaller, it certainly makes John McCain look smaller."

Everyone needs to get a grip here.

People seem to have forgotten what a real attack ad is. A real attack ad juxtaposes a girl picking a daisy with a nuclear explosion: Barry Goldwater will blow up the world.

A real attack invokes rapist and murderer Willie Horton: Michael Dukakis will let criminals roam the streets.

A real attack castigates John Kerry for opposing the Vietnam War after he returned from it: John Kerry betrayed his country and its soldiers.

Paris Hilton is no Willie Horton. The Republican spots are puff pieces.

Led by Steve (the Bullet) Schmidt, the McCain campaign has taken at least partial control of the election narrative, raising the question of whether Mr. Obama is elitist, arrogant, and disconnected from mainstream America by creating ads that don't actually appear on television.

Instead, these being the doldrums of August, cable news stations have picked them up off the candidate's website, replaying them endlessly, accompanied by the musings of talking heads with furrowed brows.

Some observers believe there is a racist subtext to the ads. David Gergen, the veteran political consultant and commentator, said on ABC last Sunday that race is "the subtext of this campaign. Everybody knows it."

As a native of the South, Mr. Gergen claimed he could discern that subtext in the Charlton Heston ad: "That's code for he's uppity. He ought to stay in his place." "Uppity," applied to a certain noun, becomes incendiary.

Yet it was Mr. Obama who stumbled on the race issue, claiming that Mr. McCain and the Republicans were saying Mr. Obama "doesn't look like all the presidents on the dollar bills." Neither Mr. McCain nor anyone on his campaign has said any such thing.

Actually, Mr. Obama gives as good as he gets in this campaign, and then some. Arguably the most negative ad thus far is one he approved.

"Big oil is filling John McCain's campaign, with over $2-million in contributions," the narrator accuses. "After one president in the pocket of Big Oil, we can't afford another."

Please explain how "in the pocket of Big Oil" is less negative than "the biggest celebrity in the world."

This is not to say the Republicans are without sin, or that their plans for the fall campaign are devoid of nefarious elements.

The McCain ad accusing Mr. Obama of having time for the gym in Germany, but not for a visit with wounded troops, was based on fabricated reports.

And Karl Rove suspiciously foreshadowed a much darker version of the Hilton/Spears/Heston ads last June.

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy," he was quoted as saying, referring to Mr. Obama. "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette, that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

Which suggests that the strategy of making Mr. Obama appear elitist has been in preparation for some time, and that Mr. Rove remains plugged in to the McCain campaign. Mr. Schwartz is, after all, one of his protégés.

Still, for the moment at least, Mr. McCain can be accused of no more than taking Mr. Obama down a notch or two by lampooning his oratory and his charisma, which is a long way from Swift Boats or Willie Horton.

Besides, the ads are funny.