Hanoi Hilton to Paris Hilton

The Obama attacks may be damaging the John McCain "brand" in the long run, according to a growing chorus of Republican supporters and admirers, including McCain's mother who calls one of the ads "stupid."

But the candidate himself isn't backing off. On radio today, he compared an Obama speech to "watching a big summer blockbuster, and an hour in realizing that all the best scenes were in the trailer you saw last fall."

Long-time McCain watchers see ventriloquism in all this by Karl Rove protégés who have taken him over. McCain's 2000 campaign manager calls the Paris Hilton-Britney Spears commercial "clumsy, juvenile, and a mistake" while David Gergen parses the Charlton Heston ad calling Obama "The One" as "code for 'he's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' Everybody gets that who is from a southern background."

In the long run, what will all this do to the image of a straight-talking war hero who withstood the pressures of being a prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton and now is a captive of smearers using his name to compare Obama to Paris Hilton?

Perhaps a little time off will give McCain some perspective. “If I put in three or four 18-hour, 20-hour days in a row, then I’m not sharp," McCain told reporters recently. “It’s just a fact."

As Obama visits his grandmother and surfs in Hawaii, McCain is planning some down time later this month back home in Arizona. He may want to think about who he used to be and how to get back to being himself for the rest of the campaign season.

GOP Dope Dealing

Three out of four Americans are depressed about the way things are going, according to a new CNN poll, the worst national malaise since 1980, the last days of Jimmy Carter's era of inflation, gas shortages and US diplomats held hostage in Iran.

Ronald Reagan came along back then with a vision of "Morning in America" and the dark clouds lifted, at least for those in the upper tax brackets. Now Reagan's spiritual heir, John McCain, is elevating our mood with inspirational commercials featuring Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, which have the added benefit of provoking nostalgia for the good old days of the OJ Simpson trial with debates over who is playing the race card.

In Congress, McCain's Republican allies, with cheerleading from the Lame-Duck-in-Chief, are raising our spirits with promises to drill for more offshore oil that, in decade or so, could lower gas prices by a few cents and cornering Nancy Pelosi into allowing a vote or being blamed for not taking action to relieve the pain at the pump.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama isn't doing much to cheer us up, dwelling on such downers as the economy, health care, education and chasing down terrorists in Afghanistan or Pakistan or somewhere just as boring.

McCain's mood medication is beginning to show some lift in the polls and, if he keeps it up, we should all be high as kites by fall.

All the Money You Could Want

Most of us go through life wishing for more money but are never faced with deciding what to do with endless amounts. A news story today suggests how much imagination it takes to deal with no limits.

After a tax scam that yielded millions, the FBI raided a modest home and garage in Washington to find a Mercedes, tons of designer shoes and luggage, silver-plated iguana figurines, 13 watches including a Rolex, 90 purses (47 from Chanel), flutes and goblets by Steuben, a Faberge egg and a silver bar cart as well as courtesy cards used by regular gamblers in half a dozen Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos, phone bills of $1500 a month and travel receipts from all over. They filled 25 boxes with clothes and listed 414 unidentified pieces in the inventory.

But all this is only a testament to the banality of greed, a kind of Home Shopping Network vision of huge wealth. Without imagination, the woman who apparently embezzled more than $20 million from the D.C. government used it to become a glorified bag lady.

How much more complicated is it for the Warren Buffets, Bill Gateses, and Oprahs of the world, trying to do good, a Mike Bloomberg, pondering whether to buy the White House, or a Rupert Murdoch, too busy trying to acquire more power and influence to spend much actual money in his own life?

For some, it can produce deprivation by surfeit, psychological chaos (pace Paris Hilton and her ilk). For box-office actors and superstar athletes, there are booby traps of hubris and self-importance.

For politicians controlling huge amounts of other people's money, see the President and Congress squabbling over which is acting more like the teenager with an unlimited credit card.

For the rest of us, there is the iffy consolation of believing it's too much money that may actually be the root of all evil.

Huckabee: Move Over, Paris and Britney

Two months ago, the former Arkansas Governor, suffering from media neglect, was musing about “accompanying Paris Hilton to jail” to get some attention.

"One of the frustrations,” he said, “is that there is more attention on Britney Spears getting out of a car without underwear than there is about who is going to be the next president."

He can stop complaining. After his surprise second-place showing in Ames yesterday, Huckabee is going to be the flavor of the month. The fellow townsman of Bill Clinton from Hope, Ark. will be the talk of MSM and bloggers.

USA Today is reporting that Huckabee spent only $58 a vote in the Iowa straw poll against Brownback’s $148 and Romney’s who-knows, possibly over $1000. The Washington Post calls his showing “a win.” The preacher-musician is on his way to becoming the Republican rock star.

Fred Thompson may want to think twice about waiting for Labor Day to announce

Blonde Loyalty to Bush

Is there something in the White House water that deprives young women of free will and at the same time lightens their hair color?

The question is raised by Senate testimony today of Sara Taylor, following on recent public performances by Monica Goodling and Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino.

In answering some and evading other questions by the Judiciary Committee, Ms. Taylor showed a familiar undeviating loyalty to the Bush Administration and its master political chemist Karl Rove while navigating the narrows between perjury and contempt of Congress.

Pressuring the former White House political director, Democrats have a perception problem of their own, the risk of old pols appearing to bully a sincere young woman into betraying her former bosses.

"Having worked most of her adult life for President Bush,” her attorney wrote to the committee beforehand, “she is unquestionably loyal to the president. If there is to be a clash, we urge the Senate to direct its sanction against the White House, not against a former staffer."

It appears that Sen. Leahy et al will get very little help from Ms. Taylor. If they want the truth about the U.S. Attorney firing scandal, it will take a legal battle about executive privilege to get Rove’s testimony under oath.

Meanwhile, watching Ms. Taylor today evokes speculation about how different Paris Hilton’s life might be today if she had applied for a White House internship.

Blonde Bombshelling the News

Cable TV is giving the Fairness Doctrine new meaning this week as Elizabeth Edwards launches a surprise counterattack on Ann Coulter and flaxen-haired Paris Hilton breaks her silence on Larry King tonight.

But these celebrity blondes are only part of the picture, the dark side if you will. The Daily Show, as always, is onto the main story about the platinumming of the news, as Samantha Bee so well and warmly described it not long ago.

No Escape for Newsworthy Americans

Bill Gates and Cameron Diaz are making headlines in Peru this weekend.

Ms. Diaz is there apparently to recover from some personal heartbreak or other and to get away from the helicopters hovering over the house of her neighbor, Paris Hilton.

Mr. Gates came to attend a reenactment of the Festival of the Sun in the ancient Incan capital of Cuzco.

Both have attracted considerable attention: Mr. Gates for the royal treatment he is receiving as the donor of $27.8 million to get new cervical cancer vaccines to women in poor countries such as Peru, Ms. Diaz for her shoulder bag inscribed with Mao’s slogan, “Serve the People,” which is not going down well in a country devastated during a bloody insurgency by the Maoist Shining Path.

The burdens of celebrity follow its bearers everywhere, even when they are trying to get off somewhere for a quiet vacation.

Barbara Walters, Paris Hilton and the Pope

It’s good to see younger people get ahead. Today Barbara Walters, a friend of mine for 50 years, got her gold star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

At the ceremony were the mother and sister of Paris Hilton, the latest of the world figures Barbara has befriended and inspired. By now everyone in the civilized world knows about the phone call during which the young Ms. Hilton, revealing that she hasn’t looked in a mirror since going to jail, told Barbara, “I used to act dumb. That act is no longer cute. Now, I would like to make a difference. God has given me this new chance."

Barbara has always had this effect on troubled celebrities. In 1999, when she asked Monica Lewinsky what she would tell her children about her unfortunate relationship with Bill Clinton, the former White House intern thoughtfully replied, "I guess 'Mummy made some mistakes.’”

Empathy has been the key to Barbara’s success since we first worked together in the late 1950s. She always knows the perfect question to ask. Once there was speculation about how she would get the Pope to open up:

“Tell me, Holy Father, have you ever regretted not having children of your own?”