McCain: He’ll Do or Say Anything to Win

McCain has jumped the shark. Is it possible to top the Britney/Paris negative ad? Apparently, yes.

McCain’s latest ad uses a second-hand, debunked snippet of alleged Obama quote, and video of Obama being humorously self-deprecating, and frames it as if Obama were seriously referring to himself in a self-glorifying way.  In this manner, it’s another silly failure in execution like McCain’s “troops” ad that falsely accused Obama of snubbing the trips, and to illustrate it’s assertion, showed video of Obama visiting the troops.  Here, Obama’s self-deprecating humor disproves the whole premise of this sarcastic ad.

In a classic technique to avoid responsibility for its sophomoric mocking, it finishes with an over-the-top at the end scene of Charlton Heston’s Moses parting the seas so it can rely on the old “just kidding – can’t you take a joke?” -excuse (which McCain relied on today during his press avail). The recent RNC negative ad about Obama’s trip abroad used the exact same technique when it finished with brief shot of Obama’s head superimposed over Leonardo DiCaprio’s in a famous scene from Titanic.

McCain is using the same line of attack as Hillary against Obama, but the big difference is the press was more willing to give critical scrutiny to Hillary’s attacks during the primaries (remember her trip to Bosnia?). Now, “McCain’s base” is being much more deferential to McCain than it had been to Hillary.

The danger for McCain is he may find himself with the reputation that hurt Hillary when her attacks were exposed for lacking credibility: he’ll do or say anything to win.

UPDATE:  Apparently the MSM is beginning to see it the same way.

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