Political Ad Watch – The Hypocrisy of Celebrity

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Can someone get John McCain’s video production staff on the line for me? I think they owe me a byline on their latest ad attacking Barack Obama. Last week, in the aftermath of Obama’s German speech, I wrote a column entitled “The Political Pop Star” whose last line made a connection to the current negative connotation of celebrity in our society and it reads:

“Initially, pop stars are interesting to watch and attract a lot of media attention. Unfortunately, some of them go crazy and act a bit strange. Wasn’t Michael Jackson called the ‘King of Pop’ in the 1990s…does anyone want him to run the country?”

The McCain campaign took the idea and ran away with it in linking Obama’s political celebrity with the antics of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. While this was not an unexpected turn of events, there are two very serious problems with the argument the McCain campaign is trying to communicate: the message and the messenger.

As far as the message, the key line in the campaign ad is the following: “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead?” Excuse me, but when is the President of the United States not the biggest celebrity in the world? The President, as “The Leader of the Free World,” is on television infinitely more often than any Hollywood or Pop music star. Another relevant point that connects with Obama’s speech in Berlin is the connection with the other two men who were celebrities before they became President; Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy.

Ronald Reagan was a successful movie star and served as the President of the Screen Actors Guild before he ran for his political office. John F. Kennedy held celebrity status by his Naval service aboard PT-109 in 1943 and his Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Profiles in Courage” in 1956. Most Americans consider that these men, regardless of their ideological differences, were two of the best Presidents of the twentieth century.

As far as the messenger, I find McCain’s arguments to be hypocritical at best. McCain’s own political career is owed to his celebrity status as a war hero in his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. His national celebrity allowed him the opportunity to work on Capitol Hill and win his first run for elective office in 1982 for the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona nine years after being released from the Hanoi Hilton and less than two years from retiring from the Navy in Washington, D.C.

One would think that McCain’s staff would have done a bit of fact-finding on their boss before putting out this ad. Sometimes the need to make political points overrules common sense…or the bothersome facts of reality.