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"celebrity," Take Two

The inversion Mike noted last night has been so complete that it's already prompting Freudian slips such as this one from Marc Ambinder:

Gov. Sarah Palin may well draw larger crowds than Sen. John McCain ever did, and the McCain campaign plans to take advantage: they're filling a calendar that will find her deployed to places where McCain can't go, places where McCain's gone and fallen flat, and places where social conservatives need an enthusiasm boost.

The campaign disclosed plans for both McCain and Obama to visit a conservative exurb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the economically distressed suburbs of Detroit, Michigan and the conservative bastion of Colorado Springs, Colorado. [my bold]

Oops.

It is entertaining, however, to watch the same folks who've spent the last few months deriding Obama as a political celebrity go absolutely gaga now that they have one of their own. It's the same pattern you see in the GOP's relationship with Hollywood: They hate hate hate all the empty-headed, style-over-substance stars who dabble in politics--until they find one who agrees with them (hello, Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlton Heston) and then they treat him (it's almost always a him) like a demigod.

--Christopher Orr