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Kathleen Parker is one of America's most popular opinion columnists, addressing the country's mental health through her views on current national ...
Read more about Kathleen Parker.
Kathleen Parker is one of America's most popular opinion columnists, addressing the country's mental health through her views on current national ...
Read more about Kathleen Parker.
Who Let The Kitten In?
Kathleen Parker
Oh, how we complained. Can't we please have just one day when we don't
talk about Paris?! And then one day, America's prayers were
answered. Not only did Hilton disappear, she vanished into a jail cell
where she spent 22 days for violating parole.
When finally she did emerge, a repentant and humble Hilton claimed she had found God.
"I'm not the same person I was," she averred. "God has given me this new chance."
Who knew God's messenger would be John McCain.
With his recent ad trying to convey that Barack Obama is just another celebrity whose status is based on a thin resume, McCain effectively resurrected Hilton's career.
Familiar to most by now, the ad shows Obama before a cheering crowd, then the camera pans to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. "He's the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead?" asks the narrator.
Something about higher taxes and foreign oil got lost in the reaction to the ad's allegedly racist imagery. Apparently, a black male cannot be viewed in the same frame with white females without a suggestion of racist undertones.
At least that was my first response to the controversy.
As a white female, I saw the ad as simply dumb and beneath McCain. Too easy. Too cliched. We all get the celebrity bit. But upon further reflection, the ad was subliminally loaded.
It is a fact that few other faces -- black, white, male or female -- are as well known as Hilton's and Spears'. It's also a fact that few celebrities, if any, are as comparably well-known for gaining their status without much resume.
But it is a more important fact that the two ladies are perceived as being of questionable character. Their celebrity is based in part on their sexual displays. Hilton's career was launched with a homemade porn movie. Spears is known to forget to wear undergarments in public.
Their value as examples of celebrity is overshadowed by their sexual symbolism, in other words.
The first association upon viewing the ad might well be celebrity, but the second connection is surely sex. Despite racial progress in this country, the black man/white woman sexual taboo still burbles just beneath the surface of America's unconscious mind -- and easily roils to the top in some pockets where racism is still easily tapped.
Did McCain intend it that way? My sense is no, owing to McCain's own profoundly painful experience with a similar tactic in 2000 when his daughter was the target of an ugly racist attack. Push pollers placed calls in South Carolina saying that McCain's adopted daughter (from Bangladesh) was really his illegitimate black child.
Even if baiting racists would win him the election, it is highly doubtful McCain would allow it. But he did allow this ad, which, at the very least, showed poor judgment. A subsequent Obama-celebrity ad is missing the missies, but the damage has been done.
McCain's ad, meanwhile, was a gift to Hilton. Her video rebuttal not only is more clever than McCain's original, but she manages to mock the elder statesman. Seated on a chaise in bathing suit and gold heels, Hilton introduces herself: "Hi, I'm Paris Hilton and I'm a celebrity, too. Only I'm not from the olden days and I'm not promising change like that other guy. I'm just hot."
Because McCain put her in his ad, Hilton says she figures she must be running for president. So she presents her "hybrid" energy plan -- a combo of McCain's drilling and Obama's new technology. Something to tide us over until, you know, the problem's solved.
The unsolved problem for both McCain and Obama is they have too many people telling them what to do. Too many polls, managers and handlers later, they're losing their true selves. Both were once unique in different ways. Mavericks in their own time, they were original men who each had transcended challenging circumstances, if of different orders.
Politics has become so shallow that a poor little rich girl, America's icon of shallowness, can spoof a war hero and veteran U.S. senator and make him seem silly. Worse, Paris Hilton is back in the buzz.
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Kathleen Parker's e-mail address is kparker@kparker.com
(c) 2008, Washington Post Writers Group
This news arrived on: 08/08/2008
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Posted Comments:
08-11-2008 10:54
RME KRNL wrote:
McCain celebrity ad
Although I normally agree with you, Kathleen, you missed the call on this one.
The McCain ad was not silly; it was funny. And although liberal MSM "analysts" saw only racist and/or sexist subliminal messages, anyone with a dab of common sense could clearly see that the point of the ad was to poke fun at the idea that mere celebrity, especially of vacuous "stars," equated in any way to leadership ability -- not for Hilton, not for Spears, and not for Obama.
Actually, the ad was just controversial enough and just clever enough that the MSM liberal talking heads spent the whole following week giving it more life than it might have otherwise had, thereby putting Obama off-message and Team Obama on the defensive exactly when Obama was trying to capitalize and build on his overseas rock star tour.
So, the ad worked pretty well, I'd say.
The McCain ad was not silly; it was funny. And although liberal MSM "analysts" saw only racist and/or sexist subliminal messages, anyone with a dab of common sense could clearly see that the point of the ad was to poke fun at the idea that mere celebrity, especially of vacuous "stars," equated in any way to leadership ability -- not for Hilton, not for Spears, and not for Obama.
Actually, the ad was just controversial enough and just clever enough that the MSM liberal talking heads spent the whole following week giving it more life than it might have otherwise had, thereby putting Obama off-message and Team Obama on the defensive exactly when Obama was trying to capitalize and build on his overseas rock star tour.
So, the ad worked pretty well, I'd say.
08-10-2008 23:46
Pspaay wrote:
To Bridget
Yes, Eisenhower signed an agreement to help them if it became necessary because Nato kept calling on the U.S. every time a country needed help. He only sent a very small amount of men to help keep peace. Kennedy increased that number and then Johnson escalated it even more. Then, as soon as Nixon was elected, the Democrats pulled the funding and cost us that war. The Democrats ran that war for seven years and then Nixon started pulling out troops shortly after he was elected. He finally got the last of our troops out by the third year of his term. By the way -- it was NOT a war until Kennedy started sending in more troops over this so-called incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. With the way you've got your history all screwed up, I can see why you're voting for Obama!
08-10-2008 09:04
Bridget wrote:
Reply t Mcpain
I am a very tired and soaked cranky senior citizen who lives in seattle.The center is closed today and it is 6.00 in the morning here and my husband is watching the highlights of the Olympics,but I would like to respond.First of all,dear reader about the Vietname War..you do not know your history.Before it became Vietmam it was French IndoChina for years.Then there was a coup and they asked us for help and guess what? Eisenhower was the President who signed the agreement.The Republicans go us into it.When President Kennedy became our President he looked into the situation.He wanted us out of Vietnam in 1963 and this is one of the reasons he was killed.When Johnson became President in 1963..it was a different world.Where were you? Gas in 1963 was .26 cents a gallon and bread was .15! In 1963,mr.there was a 40 hour work week.Mommy could afford to stay home and raise the children because I came from a one salary family.In 1965,there was an incident in the Gulf.It was called the Gulf of Tonkin affair..but it never happened and Johnson found out to late..but he did send in more aid.So do me a favor dont be a idiot..do not blame the Vietnam War on Kennedy! We were there because of the Republicans! Get a life and get real.This is why I am voting for Obama!
08-09-2008 22:50
Pspaay wrote:
To McPain
First of all, this war is costing less precentage of the gross national income then any war we've been in before. Sure it's costing more then 20 or 40 years ago. EVERYTHING costs more because of inflation. Bush went into this war WITH the consent of Congress -- both parties. Bill Clinton is the ONLY president who has sent troops overseas WITHOUT permission of Congress. Kennedy and Johnson got us into the Vietnam war on lies. It's taken 150 years for the politicians and the Supreme Court to destroy the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. But of course you Democrats want to blame EVERYTHING on Bush and the Republicans. We, the People, did not accept the Patriot Act -- the politicians did, without our consent -- like everthing else they do. It's not time for impeachment -- it's time for another Revolution!
08-09-2008 20:30
Pspaay wrote:
To Casey42
Where did you get your information? McCain wants to triple the national debt? That's news to me as well as the rest you wrote. Since you know so much, did you know that Obama is co-sponser for the Global Poverty Act. That one bill alone will take $840 billion off our national income and give it to the U.N. to distribute as they see fit. You know the U.N. The one in the "oil for food" scandal. Also, that bill will give the U.N. jurisdiction over the U.S. and throw out our Constitution. No socialist/Marxist agenda here! Forget it. I'll vote for McCain. At least I know he's an American in his heart. I won't vote for someone who wants to be "President of the World"
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