This ad, designed to poke fun at Obama while implying that he is indeed, "the one" is going to backfire in two very major and very important ways: 1) For the vast majority of Christians of the moderate to liberal (even progressive) stripe, including the 2/3's of evangelicals who are waking up from eight years of Bushite carnage, not to mention the vast majority of Jewish people, the movie "The Ten Commandments" features Charlton Heston in such a compelling portrayal of Moses that, especially now that Heston's dead, they've forgiven him for his later insanity.

In bringing one of the climactic moments of that movie, the scene where Moses parts the Red Sea, into the commercial, they are (inadvertently, I suspect) denigrating the very image and idea of Moses, one of the greatest heroes of the Old Testament. Indeed, Moses was "The One" who led the Exodus out of Egypt. In trying to tear Obama down they seem to be comparing him to Moses and implying that he's not any more ready to lead than Moses was. The only way McCain fits into this narrative they, themselves, have warped into existence is as... Pharaoh?

2) For vast numbers of youthful science fiction fans, the term, "The One" refers to Neo of the Matrix movies. For them, even suggesting that Obama is "The One" brings to mind images of the complete salvation of human civilization and the willingness to offer himself up as a sacrifice in order to begin liberating humanity from the machines led by a white-haired elderly man called "The Architect" (representative of all the older white men working behind the scenes to keep things the way they are now).

For these younger folks, there's nothing negative to be found in "The One." Even though Neo was, of necessity, arrogant at times, demanding that others do what he wanted, even when it made absolutely no sense to them, and especially the military commander of the underground human city, "Zion" (Commander Lock) was convinced that Neo had no experience, no right, and no clue how to lead, the final result was so massively a defeat for militarism and brought such redemption that being arrogant is completely forgivable in Obama to these younger folks if he is, indeed, "The One." In fact it's expected and necessary.

In this scenario, McCain can only represent Commander Lock (since "The Architect" seems to have a complete understanding of computers and massive spreadsheets). As the plot reveals, Commander Lock's approach had never been successful in any of the times Zion had earlier been repeatedly and easily destroyed by "the machines" for the purpose of balancing the equation by which their tidy little world operated. In terms of the world of The Matrix, that "more guns, more armor, more battle" approach could never be successful. A completely new approach was required, an approach requiring that Commander Lock's way of doing things be sidestepped, thwarted, or worked around by "The One."

Here's hoping Obama and his forces can manage to do the same. What we need, right now, is a Morpheus to help that happen... Any nominees?...

How about reacting to this add with two ads for Obama... one with McCain in the role of Pharaoh and Obama as Aaron, Moses' spokesperson and a second with McCain as Commander Lock being thwarted by Zion's council who say that Neo must be given a chance to try his approach (much to Lock's visible anger and frustration). Both sides can play games with movie images built on "The One."

Actually, as brief as it is, "I'm on Fire" is a work of art in the way it expresses what it expresses. It's impossible from the Lyric to identify the age of the object of the singer's "bad desire," but it could easily be taken to be a tongue-in-cheek comment to one's long time, same-age, spouse or lover. What the music and the song do so artfully is express the nature (and sometimes the challenge of) sexual desire. I've never found it necessary to put myself in the shoes of the singer to appreciate it, nor to speculate as to the nature of Springsteen's sex life to enjoy his song. Much like Chris Isaak's "Wicked Games" which expresses a similar set of conflicted emotions musically, both songs do such a wonderfully powerful job of expressing desire, that they can only be works of art. I appreciate Obama for having the ability to recognize the power and beauty of such songs and to include one in his play list, but at the same time, I assume nothing about the nature of his own sexual desire from that appreciation. Of course it's possible he identifies with nothing in Springsteen's song but the line "I'm on fire" (which would disappoint me greatly). But then the Republicans have used Springsteen's "Born in the USA" as a theme song in various venues for years without ever bothering to listen to the lyrics enough to realize that he's taking a firm stand against everything they believe in in every verse.

Along the lines of Gramm's previous comments about whiners: the sooner those of us who are not in the upper 1/10 of 1 percent of the wealthiest people in these United States realize we're nothing but economic serfs to the Kings and Queens, the Dukes and Duchesses of Wall Street and big business, working as hard as we can to enrich our "betters," then crawling off to die when we can no longer work, the sooner we'll all stop whining and let Gramm, McCain et all, have their world the way the believe was designed to be. I mean after all, what do we have to whine about... the bread isn't nearly as moldy as it was last week!

Just wow. Clear, catchy, straight to the point. Not an attack on character, just a statement of facts.

McCain

McBush

+McRove =

McSame

It's CSPAN all the way!!! No commentary, just the convention itself.