Andrew Sullivan points to a superb anti-McCain ad that is sincerely compelling.
It’s far and wide the best ad since the general election began. It’s extremely professionally done — great, vivid imagery with standard “washed-out” effects, great added shakiness to cameras to trigger emotions of uneasiness. It also features the best “McCain=Bush” line of comparison that I’ve heard so far — that not only has McCain voted with Bush, but that the percentage has increased almost as steadily as the public’s opinion of Bush has declined.
As I watched, I was eagerly awaiting an end with the normal “I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message” jargon…but none was found. Nope, it’s not from the Obama camp, but from a normal YouTuber.
Kind of sad. I love the Internet (clearly!), but I know that there’s a limited audience when YouTube is involved. It won’t reach the people who really need to see this, which is disheartening, because it should be seen by all.
It looks like the McCain camp is solidly convinced that the “Obama = Celeb” meme seems to be working.
They’ve released their third — yes, THIRD — ad on this subject:
Yes, it’s easy to hit McCain for not being “the original maverick,” but for being “the original celebrity.” Check out his IMDB profile, for instance. Look at that, he was on “24,” and was even in The Wedding Crashers. How nice of him.
But how’s this answer? With a framing like this, we’d stay “positive,” but also go for the jugular:
“There’s nothing wrong with capturing America’s imagination. John McCain seems to be forgetting why Americans are hoping for something new. He doesn’t give Americans enough credit — he takes us for fools, and thinks we’re supporting for Obama because he’s a ‘celebrity.’ The simple truth is it’s John McCain and George Bush’s policies that are causing Americans to dream for something better. And now he has the audacity to blame us for wanting more? He’s telling us not to be dreamers. He’s telling us ‘No We Can’t.’ It’s the ultimate pessimism. That’s not the American spirit, and that’s not what we stand for.”
Clearly this stuff is riling me up, as you can see by the last three posts, all on this subject.
I’ve hesitated to call John McCain out on his age, because I don’t like to be age-ist. I never like to say that a person can’t do something. But after some recent evidence, I’m beginning to think that there’s certainly something to be said about higher cognitive functioning and what happens to the human brain after we reach our mid-70’s.
We know that Reagan wasn’t “all there” when he was serving as president while at the same age. I wonder the same about McCain, and really, anyone who’d be serving at his age — and I’m not the only one.
Then I watched this video a few minutes ago. It’s a collection of McCain’s strangest and weirdest senior moments…and there seem to be plenty of them:
Kind of scary. Seems to diminish any argument about superior judgment, no?
