And lets not forget all the fun on YouTube where all those late night comedy writers troll for the pulse…

It seems smart for Obama to hit hard on this. A lot of people who will never vote on a critical evaluation of the issues will resent the juxtaposition between his marital trade-up wealth and the image he has cultivated.
Its simple, it speaks of hypocrisy, and the jokes of late night comedians animate the journalistic golems that sleep amidst real issues.

This one hits the waterline.

Courtesy the folks over at C&L:

McCain deflates his own “tire-gauge” attack: ”

After all the stupidity and charade surrounding the GOP’s attack on Obama -including this lampooning by Stephen Colbert — for proposing a common sense approach to increasing fuel efficiency, McCain is forced to admit that it’s a pretty good idea.

Reuters:

The surprise came during a telephone town hall meeting McCain held on Tuesday with voters in Pennsylvania.
””
‘Obama said a couple of days ago says we all should inflate our tires. I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it,’ McCain said.

But he kept up his broad criticism of Obama on energy: ‘I … don’t think that that (inflating tires) is a way to become energy independent.’

Would that be another flip-flop, McSame?’ Contrary to the Team McCain attacks, Obama never suggested that properly inflating your tires and keeping your engine tuned alone will make us energy independent. But as is always true with the Republican distortion machine, facts and context never get in the way of a good smear… even when the attacker admits that the target of the smear was right all along.’

There are more Colbert/Stewart videos on the campaign available at Indecision ‘08.

“

Looks like push-back on the drill, drill, drill strategy is going to combine McCain’s legislative profile and his promises to the oiligarchy.

Good observation in this LA Times article:

John McCain ad irritates many in Hollywood

Okay, hallmark of the Rove tactics is to turn a strength against an opponent.
But seeing the crowds around Obama and deciding that he is famous for being famous is a fundamental misunderstanding. These people are turning out to see the performance he has turned in time and time again. The civic guitar solo.
HRC poo-pooed this showmanship as mere words. But oratory has been a core political skill since Ancient Greece precisely because of what lies behind those words. Oratory as a craft, as Obama employes it,  persuades because it uses reason, emotion, and the evocation of a civic wisdom dormant in all of us.
Persuasion is the ideal process of democractic action. It is earning the consent of the governed. People will respond to more authoritarian tactics. Scare them, they will hand over freedoms for protection. Bribe them, they will put people in power who will abuse the commons to benefit their constituency. But win them by reason, by emotion, and by appealing to their idealism and they will fill the ampitheaters and pavillions just to be a part of it.
That foundation of this oratory is compelling because it is in the genetic code of American government. It re-awakens that pride and idealism Americans felt in elementary school when they first learned what their country was intended to be. Before they did the unit on slavery, native americans, the gilded age…
And after the last eight years, Americans are weary of leaders who aim low and fall short. They want to reach for more. They want leaders who remind us we are not descended from small ambitious men. Men who tell us to be afraid and then exploit the fear they breed. They want to be part of something larger and more noble than their own self-interest.
The difference between a rock star and a celebrity is that on stage, the celebrity can only wave, the rockstar performs.

His people are already distancing themselves in July for pity’s sake….

Marc Ambinder (July 30) – Weaver, McCain’s Former Strategist, Calls “Celeb” Ad “Childish” :
30 Jul 2008 04:10 pm
John Weaver,  for years one of John McCain’s closest friends and confidants, has been in exile since his resignation from McCain’s presidential campaign last year.    With the exception of an occasional interview, he has, by his own account, bit his tongue as McCain’s campaign has adopted a strategy that Weaver believes ‘diminishes John McCain.’
With the release today of a McCain television ad blasting Obama for celebrity preening while gas prices rise, and a memo that accuses Obama of putting his own aggrandizement before the country, Weaver said he’s had ‘enough.’
The ad’s premise, he said, is ‘childish.’”