3 Good reasons to hate Meghan McCain’s blog (besides the obvious)By Marianne Moore
Meghan McCain, the senator’s young, hot, keffiyeh-wearing daughter, has taken to blogging from the campaign trail, and the media is lapping it up: depending on who you read she’s alternately “hilarious,” “refreshing,” or even “adorable.” Lest you be seduced by the blog’s seemingly innocent, light-hearted descriptions of bad campaign food or the Governator’s neckwear, find below the tools you need to remain ruthlessly scowling at Meggers and her Daddy.
1. Revolting Fake Hipness
In addition to sharing her observations and insights from the road, Meghan also graces us with her iTunes playlists, a sure way to show us that she’s down. The playlists are a truly bizarre mix of predictable indie bands (Architecture in Helsinki, Neutral Milk Hotel, Broken Social Scene: seriously, it’s like she hired a consultant) older artists (David Bowie, Stevie Wonder), shite (Rod Stewart), and music a Republican just has no business listening to (Joni Mitchell, Iggy Pop). Really, she can listen to whatever she wants; I guess what I object to is Meggers turning some of my favorite artists into hollow McCain shills, just like I generally object to the pollution and degradation of things I hold sacred.
According to a hysterically enthusiastic article in Britain’s The Observer, Meghan has single-handedly “reinvented the campaign blog” and “injected [McCain’s] political persona with some much-needed street cred.” Right. Because nothing says street cred like private jets, ditzy gushing over mass murderer Henry Kissinger’s loafers, and “self-deprecating” admissions of Starbucks addiction.
Shannon Bae shows us What Asian People Like: Soda! John McCain!
2. Asian Tokenism
The mysterious “street cred” cited by The Observer may be mostly “injected” by Shannon Bae, an LA film producer hired by Miss McCain to produce a video blog from the campaign trail. Though Bae is supposed to be behind the camera, she winds up in front of it more often than the senator himself, pulling wry faces in peaked caps and low-riding jeans. She’s cute, spontaneous, and she also appears to be (ahem) the only person of color kickin' it with Meghan on the Straight-Talk Express. As Meghan and Dad mug for the cameras with a grinning Bae, it can’t be lost on them (even bubbly Meghan) that Shannon’s presence is mediating the senator’s crusty white decrepitude, perhaps more than his daughter ever could.
3. Propagandistic, distracting, and irrelevant information
In an L.A. Times article, Meghan claims that discussing politics “isn’t her role.” Her take-home message is “look how normal and relatable we are.” The McCains eat doughnuts, clown around, sing karaoke, wear pajamas. While it seems perfectly innocent and apolitical, this type of irrelevance-mongering, wherever it occurs on the political spectrum, is sneak-propaganda. Propagandists make up news stories to distract people from what’s really going on—while it may be perfectly true that Meghan McCain eats way too much junk food and that “The Big Lebowski” is one of her favorite movies, we have no way of ever knowing if it’s true, and if we did we wouldn’t care, so it might as well be totally made up. The entire McCain family could be made up of bug-eyed, brain-eating aliens for all we really know; what matters are a candidate’s policies. Pictures of him hanging out with his “normal” family are intended to shift our attention away from the issues and make us want to vote for him because he’s such a nice guy. I’d rather vote for Lrr from Omicron Persei 8; I bet his alien daughter’s blog is way less irritating.
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Comments (5)
Are you saying that Hilary, who pimps out her clueless daughter on college campuses, is somehow above this fray? McCain is an idiot -- what's Hilary's excuse? I think what really grinds your gears is the simple and shallow fact that McCain happens to call himself a Republican. And Obama would do the same thing if his daughters were five years older.
Posted by expatriate | June 10, 2008 12:34 AM
Isn't all hipness fake?
-marc
Posted by marc salomon | June 10, 2008 10:19 AM
She reeks of fiction, can't stand her, so annoying.
Posted by Shannona | June 11, 2008 02:20 PM
I'm a geezer, so not part of the normal blogosphere, but I happened to catch Meghan McCain's blog and - A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G! Then again, no more objectionable than half the crap on the web and at least as substantive as "Obama Girl's" selling her breasts to the semi-literate as a political statement. Ordinarily, I'd dismiss this as the normal campaign "fluff" that attends every electoral office bid, but, surprisingly, one of the Obama supporters, with whom I have spirited debates, has become more receptive to McCain on the basis that Meghan McCain is "smokin'", so, maybe, given the intellect of the electorate, this stuff works. Wouldn't it be simpler to just let the Praetorian Guard auction off the dying Empire to the highest bidder? Or we could have Obama-Girl and Meghan settle the issue in a nude mud-wrestling match. With "Pay-per-view", we might even be able to reduce the national debt.
Posted by oldefarte | June 12, 2008 03:21 PM
McCain sucks-she's a fugly slut.
Posted by AryanMjolnir | June 21, 2008 02:45 AM