Over the past couple of months, as John McCain ran a string of ridiculous ads (Paris Hilton, lipstick, sex-ed, etc.), Barack Obama and the Democrats expressed hope that we could someday move past the superficiality of the McCain campaign and start talking about real issues again. The economic meltdown threatening our very existence seems to be one of those issues, and yet on the day that the Senate grills our soon-to-be-omnipotent financial overlords, Obama has released an ad attacking McCain for owning (get ready to gasp) ... three foreign cars.
So wait, it's only three cars out of what, 35? Okay, only (ha, only) 13 — which means McCain buys over 75 percent of his cars from American companies. Not a bad percentage if you ask us. And who knows what kind of mid-level manservant in the Cindy Hensley empire actually went and picked out these foreign cars. Anyway, the point is that this ad is no less irrelevant than some of those McCain ads that were lambasted by the Obama campaign. Sure, there's some kind of actual policy critique buried in there about loan guarantees, or something — we couldn't pay attention over the gloomy music and sarcastic narration. But clearly the purpose of the ad is to piss off the Michigan voters who may view buying a foreign car as a kind of mortal sin, even if they cost less and have better fuel efficiency and are easier to maintain and drive like a dream. Of course, if he wanted to, McCain could probably buy enough American cars to permanently reverse Detroit's economic downturn, but it's not an obligation.
