Extremely Lame

My name is Cochese, and I approve this message.

There are a couple McCain ads that have just sort of floored me in the past week, and the Democratic response to one of them is even more idiotic.

The first of these is on McCain’s website, with color commentary in the Boston Herald. Let the mudslinging begin. There’s the claim that Barack Obama was more concerned about heading to the gym (in 26 minutes) than visiting wounded troops in Iraq because cameras weren’t allowed in. First off, the reason for canceling the trip was that the campaign was informed the day prior that because he was going there with a retired general as part of his staff, it’d had been considered a campaign visit instead of a senatorial one, and the desire to not use troops as political fodder won out. No matter what the decision, it’d have been lambasted by the right (which is why he should just do his own thing instead of what’s politically expedient *COUGH COUGH FISA*). Hell, this entire trip to the Middle East and Europe was fueled by the right basically daring him to go, and when it was apparent he wasn’t going to fall on his face or ride in a tank, they started impugning him for going.

Interestingly enough, that’s not the most amusing part of the commercial. That footage of Barack Obama “going to the gym,” accusing him of being too busy to visit the troops? That’s him with U.S. troops, in Kuwait, last week.

But wait, there’s more! Because of the negative response to that ad from both the left and the right, it got sent off the airwaves in favor of a much more highbrow commercial, one that compares Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. I’m not kidding you.  You know it’s bad when you have a longtime friend of McCain say that, “There is legitimate mockery of a political campaign now, and it isn’t at Obama’s. For McCain’s sake, this tomfoolery needs to stop.”

That said, some of the reaction to this ad by the left (though not the Obama campaign itself, as far as I can tell) almost stuns me into silence. Some are rattling their sabres by saying that coupling Obama with a couple of “white, blond, bimbos” is indicative that the McCain campaign wants to draw the allusion that the scary black man is asking, “Where the white women at!?” Really? No, seriously, really? Do you really want to give credence (I wouldn’t hold out much hope for it though) that normally ludicrous accusation that Obama supporters play the race card? I’m even hesitant to agree with Gawker, who quotes Rick Perlstein as saying that the commercial is more reminiscent of Triumph of the Will. I can actually see kind of a subtle Godwin in the ad, but you aren’t going to see me accusing McCain’s campaign of trying to paint Obama as a Nazi.