Graham slams Obama's celebrity

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is one of Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's most trusted surrogates, defended a McCain campaign ad that compares Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

Obama, McCain's Democratic challenger, recently returned from a European trip where more than 200,000 gathered to see him speak.

Graham suggested the crowd proves only that Obama is a celebrity, who like Hilton and Spears, has earned fame for doing nothing. Leadership, said Graham, requires more than exposure.

"This is a hysteria around a personality, that's attractive. But when you look under the hood, there's not a whole lot there," Graham said of Obama. "So fame without portfolio is, sort of, fashionable. But leadership without experience is dangerous."

Comments

[AspenFreePress]

How do guys like Lindsey Graham stack up against a guy who was editor of the Harvard Law Review, gets elected U.S. Senator from Illinois, is leading in his run for the U.S. presidency; and then to top it off sinks a three-pointer on his first try at a military gym in Kuwait as a packed house of U.S. soldiers cheer him on? I guess you try to bash this wunderkind down in TV ads comparing him to Paris Hilton, right? I'm really curious how small John McCain and Lindsey Graham feel right now when they look at Barack Obama. Sterling Greenwood
Aspen Free Press

[Mattheus Mei]

Lindsey's got my vote in Nov. over Bob Connely, but come on lindsey - that whole statement was just so gay

[CHen]

I agree with Graham on this-Obama has no leadership experience just popularity. He hasn't been in politics long enough to acquire the necessary qualities that a leader possesses. He talks a good game but that isn't what it'll take to run the country.
His idea of taxing oil companies will lead to higher gas prices because those costs will be passed on to the consumer.

[wtf]

looks like princess is soooo jealous.

[hank]

Looks like the neo-cons are at it again trying to divert attention from the failure of Bush's policies and painting Mr.Obama as the bogeyman in high heels. Due to the Bush Administration's bonehead decision- making the Republican Party has dug itself a hole that no candidate - not even McCain - can dig out of. The American public deserves an honest debate on the issues. Leave the character assasinations for the National Enquirer.

[Tom]

LIndsey Graham is so gay
When is he gonna come out

[Daryl]

You're right, Mr. Graham...let's have a president folks don't like, like the guy you're endorsing...

[Tommy C]

Everybody I know is voting for Bob Conley.

Look at Lindsey: all those millions and he only polls about 54% when his opponent has just about ZERO name recognition?

In the primary, 1/3 of his party voted against him? Add that 1/3 to 50% or more of the voters in South Carolina getting out to vote Democrat and Miss Lindsey is in deep trouble. No wonder he's brown-nosing McCain. He wants to stay in D.C.

[Fargo51]

Mr. Obama IS the Pied Piper. And everybody knows that if you're stupid enough, you will follow anybody that says something different, no matter how different, anywhere. Rats are pretty stupid too, but once they get onto the scent of something, they will stop at nothing to get where they want to go. Once they get there, there is just a whiff of cheese, and a lot of hot air. I think he is to the point that he thinks he is ready, no, he will, walk on water.

[Scott]

Apparently, jabs at Obama's "celebrity" are the best Republicans can come up with these days. How sad!

Had the party not been represented by the God-complex of the Bush administration for the past 8 years, maybe it would stand, at very least, a CHANCE at winning this general election. But it doesn't. And now it's time for the proverbial grasping at straws.

They can fault young Americans all they want for being naive about Obama's credentials. But the truth is that those young Americans ARE America. And had Republicans been able to garner this type of support amongst the younger generation, they would've had to change their entire social stance. Those VOTERS of the younger generation, by and large, are DONE with the piety and intolerance that the GOP stands for...just to maintain its near-illiterate "base" by hi-jacking society's varied concepts of God, and what's morally, spiritually, and ethically "right" for us all. NOW WRONG IS BEING MADE RIGHT -- BY LEANING A LITTLE LEFT -- RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES.

The "credentials" of the GOP's current leadership have proven useless, if not down-right TOXIC, for the average working American. Thanks, Boys! You've reminded us, despite our openness to both party affiliations, that passion and reason DO still matter...even moreso than Capitol Hill "experience!" And the argument about a Democratic Congress making little progress? Its hands remain tied by an Executive Branch that refuses to compromise...even in the throes of its last days!

Keep picking on the young folks, Republicans; that's SUCH a brilliant strategy! The results of the Grand OLD Party's "values" will finally be apparent -- THANK GOD -- come January 20th, 2009.

[Ducky13]

Obama is about change. OK, give us some details. All you have to do is listen to one speach and any normal person would understand that he is clueless. His rhetoric about change and taxing anything that moves or breathes, is plane stupid. Obama is a brilliant man, he can inspire the masses, but look at the substance and you have nothing.
To see where the country is headed under the liberals, all you have to do is watch the movie "Idiocracy."
The Democrat controlled house and senate are as worthless to the Republicans as Bush is to the Democrats.
Pelosi will allow a vote on taking a month off, but not a vote on an energy bill that will allow more domestic oil production. Voting for Obama is nothing more than voting the economy into a depression, but you young people have no clue how bad it could be or how bad it has been.
Study your history, you are about to repeat it.

[Martin]

What is this relationship all about--this relationship between Lindsey and John? Wherever John is, there's Lindsey, full-time. This part-time SC Senator is at John's side, full-time. When does Lindsey find time to work for the people of SC? I think we all should support and stand by our man for President but Lindsey is taking this too far.

[Phillip Branton]

Senatoro Lindse' Suave' Graham-nista.........

OPEN MOUTH; insert....WHAT??

DO you realize how ELITIST you sound !! You make it sound like you need 30 years experience to be the Prez.?? DO you realize that you just stuck your finger in every voters eye that say most all of the TIME ....."I Could Do a Better Job Than THAT??!!"

Our Government is for the PEOPLE and BY the PEOPLE...you fool??! Your view is for the people BY THE LOBBYIST!!

Lindsey...YOUR TOAST IS BURNING !!!

[Sherman Yellen]

I came upon the McCain ad comparing Obama to Britney and Paris. And it stopped me cold. What's that about? And why did it trouble me so?
Let me get the really nasty stuff off my chest right away. Comparing Obama to Paris Hilton is another of McCain's tasteless and inept jokes. Paris Hilton is a no-talent nobody blessed with the good looks and good fortune that have made her a shameless somebody to our giddy press. Like John McCain, she came from affluent circumstances. And like him she is a survivor; he survived a long imprisonment in a brutal war, and she survived a spoiled brat childhood in Beverly Hills. I don't mean to denigrate his suffering, or hers, but the sad fact is that both of them seemed to learn so little from it. You couldn't send either of them to the grocery story for a container of milk and expect them to identify it -- the store or the milk. Like McCain, Paris is one tough cookie, someone who lives in the world without apparently being effected by the less fortunate around her. Clearly Ms. Hilton has far more in common with John McCain than with Barack Obama.
In different ways Paris and McCain both inhabit their own plastic bubbles comfortably. She has charmed the besotted paparazzi, bent them to her will, and prevailed, posturing on life's red carpet, slinking towards oblivion or middle age -- whichever comes first. McCain has made it to his Republican presidential nomination by charming an infatuated political press that never seemed to ask him a tough question. He lightened his moral load as he aged by tossing off whatever burdens of decency and character he intermittently demonstrated. Now, having tossed aside reality as well in his statements about the oil crises, the economy, the war, veterans affairs (his is one of the worst voting records for vets) he is light enough to survive the run without any onerous burdens like truth or integrity.
Poor Britney doesn't deserve to be classified with Paris or even McCain. She is a talented mess who inherited nothing, made a fortune from her adolescent musical talents, whatever you think they may be, worked hard from childhood to rise above her humble origins, and for all her aberrant behavior should not be placed side-by-side with Paris or McCain, both charter members of that infamous lucky sperm club.
John McCain -- unlike the mythical Good Joe American he hopes to bamboozle with his vicious anti-Obama ads -- is an elitist/opportunist who abandoned a sick wife, carried on with an attractive blond beer heiress and married her, survived corruption charges as one of the Keating Five, and became a proxy billionaire through that romantic transaction which has helped to finance his political ambitions. To suggest that Obama, a brilliant man from a modest background, one who made his own luck and life through his intelligence and strength of character, has something in common with these Hollywood girls is less than an insult to Obama, who has young daughters and clearly loves them; it is an embarrassment to McCain, as it reveals his low view of women. They are dirty jokes to him. Be it a young Chelsea Clinton's awkward adolescent looks, or women being raped by gorillas, he finds the denigration and victimization of women a source of infinite jest. None of this is accidental. It all fits in with that infamous ad. If you wanted to contrast Obama to a dubious celebrity there are so many untalented men who fit the category -- too many to list here -- but McCain chose two feckless, reckless young white women to bring his opponent low by stating that there was little substance to back up Obama's fame and popularity. In making that ad McCain went well beyond his stated intention to show his opponent as an empty suit. It's so easy to see the ad for what it is and read "black man, promiscuous young white women, wink wink." Wouldn't it be splendid if the mainstream press suddenly opened its eyes to that ploy?
When you get to a certain age -- my age -- new life becomes the spectacular anodyne to all the illness and death around you. It forces one to look at the future in a new way; protectively, not as a distant place that we know we will never visit but as a place we want to make safe for those we love after we are gone. As the grandfather of three girls ranging in age from three days to three years I take deep offense at this denigration of women that passes for political rough and tumble. We can only hope that McCain will soon abandon his sexism together with his incipient racism as the campaign continues. But we won't bet the farm on it. God help America and my beloved grand-daughters should he prevail. McCain offers the future nothing but the past, and the past just isn't working very well these days for any of us.

[Karen]

These silly comments tell us nothing about Obama, but say alot -- maybe all we need to know -- about McCain and Graham. Sad.

[pam , Greenwood]

Lindsay Graham is gay ? I like Obama's energy plan and tax breaks and I like the fact that seniors making less than 50,000 pay no taxes. I am shocked that Graham is gay what a hypocrit. The GOP has turned into gays on parade.

[TF]

Obama has no substance...no guts. When his pastor was discovered to be a racist hate monger....Obama knew nothing about it. He had only been attending that church for over a decade, admitted the man was his spiritual mentor, and titled one of his books, Audacity of Hope, after one of his pastor's sermons. Now, his buddy Ludacris the rapper, comes out with a song talking about how Hillary Clinton is a bi@#h, how McCain should be paralyzed in a wheelchair, and that Bush is mentally handicapped.....and what does Obama say...NOTHING. He has actually had a private meeting with Ludacris and admits to listening to his music on his IPOD. And you people want to sit an complain about this MILD commercial.

By all means, let's elect Obama because he's black, he can play basketball, and women think he's good looking (i still don't get that one). Let's not elect someone with substance, and integrity and a purpose.

Aren't you all sick of this? NEither one of these menb are fi to lead this nation. Stop hating on Bush for one second to open your eyes and see that the PEOPLE have lost our voice in this country. These people don't represent us...they CON us every 4 years. And what do we get for it...nothing...higher gas prices, unstable economy, no indepence when it comes to our own energy, unemployment...Both parties are to blame because all they want is power...from the day they take office all they want is more.....WE THE PEOPLE need to take this country back. We need to start electing REAL people to office and refusing to accept the status quo. Admit it people...even you liberals...neither one of these men are leading this country down the right path. Obama and McCain have very similar views to socialism...and socialism don't work.

We need to wake up before it's too late!!!