In Disney’s Cinderella, Cinderella’s mouse friends make her a ballgown trimmed with her stepsisters’ discarded ribbons and beads. When the stepsisters see her dressed appropriately for the ball, they rip all the decorations off her gown — and then mock her for thinking she could go to the ball in that state, as if it were her doing and not theirs that her dress is ripped to rags.
I often think of that scene when reading “news” reports about Barack Obama. The snooze media have been endlessly repeating and discussing John McCain’s ad that ridicules Obama as a “celebrity” and makes false claims about Obama’s policy proposals, magnifying the ad’s message and distracting the voters from the substantive issues Obama’s been discussing. Inevitably, the echo chamber has made the ad effective enough that Obama has to respond to it.
So now the Associated Press is criticizing Obama for responding to the ad instead of addressing important issues.
It works out so well for the mediawhores and their political patrons. For the voters, not so much.