In hitting Barack Obama because of his perceived ‘celebrity,’ is John McCain missing something essential about the world we live in? Using the work of famed war reporter Nick Ut, who worked in Vietnam and recently made news by photographing Paris Hilton crying on her way to prison, Joao Pereira Coutinho of Portugal’s Expresso newspaper writes in part:
“I’m stupefied by John McCain’s attitude in comparing Barack Obama to Paris Hilton – a feat that Hilton has already responded to with a video that is as inevitably burlesque and as it is vacuous – and which has proven a great success among the weak-minded masses. In the archaic mind of John McCain, calling his opponent a ‘celebrity’ will bring him disrepute. Poor McCain: in the 21st Century, it is disreputable not to be one.”
By Joao Pereira Coutinho
Translated By Brandi Miller
August 23, 3008
Portugal – Expresso – Original Article (Portuguese)
Some time ago I read a article about the remarkable photographer Nick Ut. Who is Nick Ut? The best way to introduce this creator is to recall one of his creations. For that we need to look back thirty five years. In Ut’s most famous photograph [below], we see a group of children in Vietnam fleeing a bombing attack. And in the middle of the road, with open arms, is a small nine-year-old girl, completely nude, with an expression of shock and horror.
The picture was published around the world and Ut won the respected Pulitzer Prize. Then there was thirty-five years of silence which was only broken by a recently taken photograph. Now we have a new girl. We also have a new girl crying. But this time the person in question is not a Vietnamese child. It’s Paris Hilton in the back seat of a police car on the day she learned that prison bars awaited her due to some infraction [below]. That photo, too, was shown around the planet – and Nick Ut had suddenly returned to the kingdom of the living. A Pulitzer cannot be ruled out.
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