Meghan McCain: The “Paris Hilton” of politics

It turns out Andy Warhol was just a few decades early when he said everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. In this era of youtube and Twitter, we are now witnessing that of which he prophesied… sort of. More precisely, we are witnessing desperate souls trying ever so hard to achieve that elusive “15 minutes” through a combination of social networking sites, Blackberries, and shameless audacity.

Meghan McCain takes a page from the Paris Hilton play book.

Paris Hilton, of course, is the poster child for being famous for no other reason than having a famous name and oodles and oodles of mailbox money. But even with those huge advantages in her quill, Paris Hilton needed a little extra “oomph” to catapult herself from a relatively obscure hotel heiress to the current reigning Paparazzi Diva: she needed a scandal. So like any enterprising young woman with ambition and some appreciable physical assets, she made a sex tape that just happened to get “leaked” onto the internet. A few feigned moments of embarrassment and a couple of lawsuit threats later, and viola!…”fifteen minutes” that has waaaay out-lived its shelf life.

Which brings me to Meghan McCain. Young women like Meghan McCain and Miley Cyrus owe Paris Hilton a debt of gratitude. Hilton, after all, pioneered the now popular method of maximizing internet exposure for fame and notoriety. Up until recently, Meghan had primarily utilized her blog to achieve modest status as a young Republican pundit. For example, in August of 2008, after her father and presidential candidate, John McCain, had just named Sarah Palin as his running mate, she posted this:

“Yesterday was incredible. Again I got to witness history in the making, from a front row seat. Starting out the day with Dad’s choice of Governor Sarah Palin as his nominee for Vice President is a moment on stage I will never forget. She and her family are so down to earth and so much fun. I could not be any luckier to have these wonderful people join us on the road.”

But while she may have gushed over witnessing this historic moment and her admiration for the Palin family in the heat of the moment, the ordinarily critical and outspoken Meghan McCain has since been mostly silent about Palin, instead taking aim at Bush-era Republicans like Karl Rove. Shortly after joining Twitter, she posted this:

(Twitter’s) allowed me to share the less serious aspects and humorously uncensored moments of my life. But there’s a downside: I am now being followed by Karl Rove, and my local sheriff, and God knows how many other political pundits. We need to take Twitter back from the creepy people.”

That little “tweet” led to quite a bit of media attention and soon Meghan McCain had developed a feisty reputation as a repudiator of many in her own political party. Now having Twitter in her arsenal, and a willingness to publicly disparage a much-maligned Republican like Karl Rove, Meghan got a new taste for just how useful the internet can be in garnering widespread web cred. Soon she was dusting it up with conservative darlings like Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter, garnering even more favor with the mainstream press.

But alas, “fame is a fickle food,” and rather than finding herself as a political commentator to be taken seriously, Meghan seemed to be considered more of a “fly in the ointment,” useful to the media only on slow news days when she had something provocative to say about a fellow Republican. She was that dateless girl at the prom, eagerly awaiting the moment when someone… anyone… might extend a hand and softly say, “Want to dance?” But as song after song passed, and no such invitation materialized, what was a self-respecting, ambitious young lady to do, especially an aspiring journalist and daughter of a former presidential candidate… a young woman who wanted to be more than just an agent provocateur in political circles? Why, she posted a sexy picture of herself on the internet, of course!

Meghan boasts over 60,000 followers on Twitter so naturally, given the odds, there would be a few who would respond negatively to her, uh, bold photo… and many did. Some, for instance, called her a “slut,” to which she feigned great indignation and posted this:

“When I am alone in my apartment, I wear tank tops and sweat pants, I had no idea this makes me a ‘slut’, can’t even tell you how hurt I am. This is why I have been considering deleting my Twitter account, what once was fun now just seems like a vessel for harassment.”

She then later posted this about-face:

“I do want to apologize to anyone that was offended by my Twitpic. I have clearly made a huge mistake and am sorry 2 (sic) those that are offended.”

Uh, yeah.

Personally, I find it not so much ironic as telling that she would pose in said picture, holding up an Andy Warhol book (of all things). Is this Meghan’s not-so-subtle way of telegraphing to us the exact purpose of posting the picture? Only time will tell.

Narcissism in the age of youtube, or “I don’t think your baby is cute (and neither does anyone else!)”

My wife and I recently ate dinner at a couple friends’ house. We had a great time laughing and talking, enjoyed some delicious grilled steaks, and generally had a very pleasant evening. But the strongest impression I was left with as we drove home was the magnitude of the  shrine to their four-year-old son they had created.

Don’t misunderstand, the little boy is alive and well. By “shrine” I mean that I counted no less than 30 pictures of  ”Thaddeus” (not his real name), and that was just in the living room! There were pictures of him in the hospital barely a few minutes old (and still covered in that milky stuff), pictures of him arriving home, pictures of his first Christmas, first birthday, swinging, playing with the dog, eating cereal, wearing a Darth Vader costume, riding his tricycle, skating, playing in the snow, on and on and on…

Then there was the corner of the room that I’m guessing was the Sears Portrait area, where a variety of photos of different sizes were on display. There was an 11×17 of Thaddeus posing next to a large letter block with “A” inscribed on it hanging on the wall just above a shelf that had several smaller pictures, obviously from the same photo session. Then in another corner was an actual painted portrait of young Thaddeus giving a wistful gaze skyward… wisdom in those sparkling eyes that bellied his young age. I half expected to see “Hope” emblazoned along the bottom!

Now obviously this couple loves and adores their son, and why shouldn’t they? He’s a cute, smart kid, their only child, and the fruit of their love and devotion to one another. But over 30 pictures in only one room after just four short years on the planet? Really?  My wife and I may have a total of 30 pictures of our two kids combined, and they’re both teenagers! But I give our friends major credit for one thing: their somewhat excessive display of pride in their kid is at least limited to the confines of their house.  

No, the most egregious offenders of child pride gone horribly wrong are the parents who vomit their kid’s “cuteness” all over the internet via youtube. It’s bad enough that these deluded folks go to the trouble of video taping their kids dancing, singing, or whatever, but the fact that they then post the videos online for all the world to see (as if we care) is beyond-the-pale narcissistic.

Hey pathetic lady in the above video, whose awkward squats make you look like you’re trying to unloose a stubborn “cling-on” lodged in your tailpipe: I don’t think your baby is cute. As a matter of fact, whatever “cuteness” she might possess is exponentially diminished with every passing second you parade her in front of the camera! How about devoting whatever energy you put into orchestrating that video monstrosity into just raising your kid to be a decent human being, rather than modeling behavior that foretells a bleak future of child beauty pageants and kiddie show auditions?

But the Grand Poobah of exploitative parents have to be the folks who financially profit from the shameless public display of their “cute” kids. I’m not talking about the mere stage parent, who cashes their kid’s paycheck after the Pampers commercial wraps. I’m talking about the Godfathers of exploitation… the publicity-starved reality show wannabes who drag their helpless kids through whatever degradations necessary to get them on television. The most obvious example would be Jon and Kate Gosselin, but there are many other lesser known bottom feeders, such as the “balloon family,” who is currently enjoying their 15 minutes from what is looking more and more like an elaborate publicity stunt. Even if everything the family says is true about fearing their six-year-old, Falcon, was inside the balloon as it sped thousands of feet above the Colorado landscape, why are they now parading him (and the other two boys) in front of every conceivable news show, if not for their insatiable appetite for publicity?

Not surprisingly, this same family participated in the embarrassing “wife swap” television program not too long ago, so the level to which they are willing to descend for any sort of fame seems to know no limits. But if it turns out that the father, Richard Heene, a self-described “scientist” who created the balloon for the family’s storm-chasing adventures, hatched this convoluted plot for the chance at getting his own reality show, then he should indeed become the reigning King of Exploiting-my-kids-for-any-fame-I-can-possibly-muster Publicity Whore. And at this point, the Gosselins would probably be more than happy to hand over that crown!

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