The Divine Obama -- new McCain ad

Satire cuts both ways, though. The last McCain ad is already being spoofed on YouTube:

www (dot) youtube (dot) com/watch?v=4c-S48q8ZZE

Yes, it is a funny ad ... and it serves a purpose ... but only for now.

However, I think the McCain people will do their candidate a disservice if they go ON TOO LONG with this jocular approach. John McCain has accomplished an enormous amount in Washington, especially working across the aisle with Democrats (and, yes, even in ways that have annoyed the GOP "base"). He and his wife have raised a large brood, including a young orphan from south Asia whom they adopted from Mother Theresa as well as kids from McCain's first marriage.

How many Americans have adopted children from overseas -- on top of the ones they already have? What does this say about John and Cindy McCain? For them, the "ethic of life" is not merely a concept to bloviate about at a Pro-Life rally ... it is a way of life for them.

Then there is the untold story about the service and sacrifice of his two sons. There's been justifiable griping on this blog about the "chicken hawks" and the pro-war Washington politicians who wouldn't see their own children serve in the military. Well, both of McCain's sons are in the military: one of them is at a service academy (Annapolis?) and the other is in Iraq. This is a volunteer military, folks, and it says something about McCain and the way he conducts his life that his two sons would be willing to follow their Dad's lead and "put it all on the line" for the country.

How many Americans can say that about themselves or their chidlren?

Yes, it's the middle of summer, and these funny ads serve a purpose and certainly "fit the season" ... but McCain has a compelling story to tell and it needs to be told ... and told soon.

I found it funny, McCain quoting Obama making fun of himself.

I also find it tragic that McCain's people feel that they need to satirize Obama's message of hope for our nation and the call for Americans to make the difference.

I laughed at the ad, but not because of Obama, but because McCain is only showing just how petty his campaign people are.

McCain's speach to the Urban Leage was filled with substance and more helpful to him than any of his ads. The ads show him as a whiner and name caller while his speaches tell of who he is and what he envisions for the country.

The liberal blogger Ezra Klein remarked the other day that the 2008 McCain campaign is starting to resemble the 2003 Dean primary campaign:

The Dean campaign was a lot of fun in early 2003. It was like the political version of the movie Big: One morning, all these activists and news junkies woke up to find that they had substantial control over a real presidential campaign! The result was a campaign strategy with a lot of joy and whimsy to it; I remember, in particular, when Dean spent $300,000 or so to run ads in Crawford, Texas. The Dean campaign wasn't going to win Texas, but mischievously running commercials in Bush's hometown would raise a few bucks, attract some buzz, and be a gas for Dean's supporters.

Long term, however, it wasn't an effective strategy. Among the Dean campaign's problems was that, as it inched ever closer to the nomination, it had to grow up. The maturity and savvy of their strategy had to equal their size. It didn't. And we're seeing the same problems in the McCain campaign. ... Stunts like this are cute, but they reflect the McCain campaign's broader problem: They just don't know what to do with their campaign. They don't know what message to offer, or advantage to play up, or attack to levy. They don't know how to counter the Obama campaign's capacity to control the new cycle and set their own narrative. Every day thus ends up being a new adventure, with a new message and a new take. That makes it a lot of fun, but it's not going to be enough.

This is more of the same. Being snarky is fun but it's not a reason for anyone to get out of bed and work for John McCain to be President.

>> "True, they both have policy positions, but the most compelling thing about each of these candidates is his personal story."

BZZZZZ! WRONG!

This is only the most compelling thing to lazy journalists and the low information voters they serve.

Paul, hoping for a restored nation: "I also find it tragic that McCain's people feel that they need to satirize Obama's message of hope for our nation and the call for Americans to make the difference."

What's tragic is that so many Democratic primary and caucus voters fell for this empty suit. This is not to condemn these voters but to castigate the wolves that would take advantage of this hunger for change.

Yes, these are funny ads, but more than amuse they serve as a gentle tap on the side of the head ... to shake many out of fruitless fantasizing so that we may all deal as a nation (and in adult fashion) with reality.

Obama is an arrogant fake. The ad is brilliant!

I used to play a lot of ball with a guy who just kept handing me my a**. I just couldn't get handle on him. After a while, since I had nothing else to bring to the game, I started clowning him. Telling jokes about his mother, etc. That got a LOT of laughs from the sidelines - and made him plenty mad - but he still beat me.

Good one, McCain. Too bad this contest isn't for the last comic standing

Senator Obama reminds me of two people, but they aren't Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. No, I prefer sports analogies.

Obama reminds me of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods: he exploded onto the national scene and he appears to dominate the political field in much the same way that Jordan dominated the basketball courts and Woods the golf course. On the other hand, Obama is completely untested. Rather than the battle-grizzled veteran and unquestioned professional champion (like, say, Brett Favre or John Elway), Senator Obama is more like the ace college quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner who was drafted number one but has never played a day in the Big Leagues (think Chris Weinke or Eric Crouch).

Below the hype? Behind it maybe. Terrible writing, sir.

It's not bad, but it presents a fundamental question. Is McCain joking around, teasing Obama, or is he serious that Obama is a megalomaniac with a messiah complex? The former makes McCain look like an adolescent, horseplaying around in the locker room. Hardly presidential. The latter is laughable and easy to debunk: one of the quotes used is badly out of context another was actually a joke Obama was telling on himself, and Obama actually has a great self-deprecating style when he wants to, and he can hit weirdo stuff like this out of the ballpark in the right setting.

In that respect the charge of is a little like the "Obama is a secret Muslim" meme. It sounds like a great rumor to spread -- Juicy! Short and punchy! Easy to remember! Appeals to the "bitters"! -- but when you start to look at it it falls apart so fast it doesn't go anywhere. In the end, I think McCain is still counting on getting a lot of slack from the press. His campaign has I'm sure already fielded questions about the ad, and already said something like "all in good fun." They seem to have forgotten that the next question is going to be "So, McCain is spening money to make locker-room jokes about his opponent? That's leadership? Are we electing a president or towel-snapper in chief?" Not only is that bad in general, but it will remind people of Bush's sense of humor, his nicknames, and how that attitude wore thin over eight years

Ummmmm. Reading about racism and religion in the book of Numbers the other day. So, let's see....if Obama is depicted as Moses, and Miriam and Aaron were contesting his leadership. Then they complained and God struck them with LEPROSY 'cuz they complained about Moses' Ethiopian wife(I am 'playing the race card' here). If I were McCain, I would look at my skin carefully over the next few days........

The Clintons tried to portray Obama as an egotistical, empty suit during the primaries and it backfired. I wonder if the same will happen to McCain? I agree that the messianic quality of Obama's speaking style is a little over the top but it resonates with many people.

I think the ad is an absolute riot and had to look twice to make sure it wasn't from the Onion.

Steve we do care about all the important issue, but we do break it up from time to time. And I say this as a ardent Obama supporter.

It's a funny ad, but I don't think it's effective, except as preaching to the McCain choir. The Paris Hilton ad was better, because it was able to tie into the Obama as rockstar image, an image which has its shallow aspects. This ad, on the other hand, mocks Obama for being inspiring to a lot of people, and there are people out there who like Obama as a person and find him inspiring who might vote for McCain anyway because they prefer him on issues of experience and policy. This ad might turn away such people, because they'll see it as mocking them and as being generally disrespectful. Also, it has a snark from the peanut gallery aspect that may be amusing in some contexts, but not in a Presidential election.

ClassClown has a good point above. Sometimes trash-talking your opponent can get him off his game and cause him to make errors and lose a game he'd otherwise win. On the other hand, if he wins anyway, the trash-talker ends up looking worse, because he's not just a loser, but a graceless one. McCain should have stopped with the Paris Hilton ad.

You want FUNNY? Watch this:

"He ventured forth to bring light to the world""
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4392846.ece

Why is it that these Brits are so much more literate, well-read, and witty than the rest of us?

Judging from the trumped up outrage and indignation of Obama and his bloggers, over Senator McCain's Moses comparison ... I'd say that Senator McCain struck a nerve. It also shows that Obama is a pompous narcissist, who takes himself way too serious, and has no sense of humor. Besides, when someone walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck ... they shouldn't flip out when someone calls them a duck ... and, in this case of self Idolatry, and virtual worship by his followers, Obama puts Huey, Dooey, and Louie to shame.

Reaganite,

"This blog already discussed whether mocking Obama's messianic pretensions is a form of blasphemy or not. Wasn't it last week that this came up? Perhaps you were absent that day, but I believe the general consensus was that the blasphemy is in PRETENDING to be messiah-like, not in the mocking of the would be messiah."

I brought this blasphemy issue up last week, but the only apparent consensus is that it's all right for conservative Christians to use sacred images to mock a liberal for political gain, no matter what tortured logic is used to justify it. The whole Messiah motif is one being pushed by conservatives, not liberals.

Judging from the original conservative outcry against McCain's candidacy, Judas McCain would be a fitting metaphor, but no conservative Christian would dare go there.

NOW, I get it! John McCain's gotten so old and cranky that he can no longer hide his jealousy of Obama.

Perfect explanation!

After all, McCain was only whispered to have fathered ONE black baby. Now there goes Obama fathering TWO and playing the 'black baby card.'

The nerve! How...how...UPPITY !!!!

(Hey. The topic was political humor, wasn't it!? And I did it without reference to anything that will affect our lives, didn't I!)

(Rod, you may use this idea without attribution.)

Muskrat | August 1, 2008 4:20 PM sets up a false dichotomy: "Is McCain joking around, teasing Obama, or is he serious that Obama is a megalomaniac with a messiah complex?"

Obama is running a campaign to mesmerize, to enthrall people, because his rhetorical skills combined with present political circumstances make people want to believe. McCain's ad is neither teasing Obama nor seriously saying he's a megalomaniac. It's trying to disenthrall voters so they can contrast McCain's real accomplishments with those of Obama, whose accomplishments are listening well, talking very well, dodging many issues, and taking a far left position on the issues he doesn't dodge.

That's why Doug Cramer | August 1, 2006 5:04 PM is semi-wrong suggesting that McCain is tacitly conceding that the election is "all about Obama." It must be about taking Obama off the pedestal he has encouraged people to put him on ("see how wonderful He is! He even can poke fun at Himself!) until the election can be about experience and substance. As Flannery O'Connor said, to the deaf you must shout, and for the blind you must use bold and startling colors.

James | August 1, 2008 11:43 PM: Get a life! That was Charlton Heston, American Icon, not Moses.

FINALLY, someone in the media had the nerve to say what's been obvious to many, including those who remember the ad run against Harold Ford.

Kudos to David Gergen: "When McCain's camp calls Obama "The Messiah" and "The One", he's really calling him "upitty." I'm from the South, and we understand what that means. That's code." (not exact quote -- view video below)

It's the same wink and nod we've seen for years since Buchanan and Nixon's 'Southern strategy' worked.

Of course part of the whole gig is that since it's not obvious to everyone, that provides a certain deniability. Well, give me a break. We're talking about professionals engaged in national politics for the nation's highest office. If they did not know what they're doing on all these levels, then they're incompetent.

And if those raised in the South -- say Louisiana, for example -- claim not to recognize this immediately, then that's simply cooperating with the wink and nod OR having failed to absorb the surrounding culture they grew up in OR thinking that said culture can be glossed over by pretending it does not exist.

And let me add that, having read thousands of his words on many topics over the past four-plus years, I am quite sure that Rod Dreher is not in any way a racist, so don't read that into what I've written here. I may disagree with his politics, but it's plain to me that he holds all people to be equally God's children. (Hey, take a complement when you can get it!)

Here the video of Gergen on ABC's This Week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfXvK84MPqQ

video