Britney Spears Angelina Jolie Paris Hilton and John McCain: What They Distract Us From

The entertainment news media frenzy that surrounds American celebrity is often highlighted by paparazzi snapping pictures of Britney Spears going to court fighting for custody of her children (which would be without the glare of the public eye an intimately personal and private matter), to surrounding Britney’s car as she pumps $4.75 gasoline, asking her stupid questions without much pretense of journalism. Americans become glued into this sort of entertainment while missing issues such as “Time Horizons” in Iraq and the idea that the U.S. President now has the power to “disappear” an American Citizen if they are labeled an “enemy combatant”. The mindless state of the entertainment media bled into the political realm with John McCain’s comparing of Barrack Obama to the celebrity of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton- Barrack Obama, a U.S. Senator and Harvard educated former University of Chicago Law Professor.

What the entertainment media does is distract. Distract us from focusing on an American President who misled the country into a war, without much of a plan to get out of it, who is on the verge of bankrupting the American economy by giving unprecedented and un-asked for tax cuts to the wealthy, thereby draining the national treasury. Perhaps this was also John McCain’s point in his celebrity ad – to distract us from the failures of Republican leadership and policies. To distract us from the Republican Party’s failure to accept responsibility. To distract us from the fact that John McCain does not have a healthcare plan to cover all Americans (he decries a plan to cover all Americans while as a U.S. Senator and former soldier, the government has paid for his health care most of his adult life).

Congratulations to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt on their twins but here is a memo to the media: no one cares who Angelina Jolie supports for President. No one! Please, stop. Turn your attention to real news, real substantive issues. Angelina and Brad (or Brangelina – ridiculous) both do good charitable work from New Orleans to Cambodia, however, as much as they try to make the story about their causes, the entertainment media, paparazzi, and now the mainstream media, distracts us from these stories that could matter, to focus on things that do not matter, like pictures of their twins.

While the media was celebrating Brad and Angelina bundles of joy, there were hearings on Capitol Hill on abuse of executive power and ultimately on whether there should be impeachment hearings for President Bush. Why? Well, not just for launching an unnecessary war in Iraq, but for the admittedly illegal wire tapping of American citizens without a warrant, in clear violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution; for the signing statements limiting the interpretation of laws enacted by Congress; and for claiming the authority to declare American citizens as enemy combatants and detain them without charges being brought and without an attorney (and that’s just the beginning – search Dennis Kucinich’s impeachment articles on Youtube). But why would you want to know about that? Bring on the babies!

Thankfully, most Americans did not see the connection between Obama, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton – can’t imagine why, maybe because their isn’t any! – and the ad has been ridiculed from the right and left as an attempt to dumb down the Presidential debate. Obama recently dropped an ad showing that McCain is a different kind of celebrity, a Washington insider, who came to embrace the policies of Bush & Cheney (perhaps after the nasty racially charged 2000 South Carolina primary battle between Bush and McCain they hugged it out). It’s clear that if we get another eight years of Bush’s policies there will be little left of the America we knew before Bush. But you wouldn’t notice it except for your job may be cut, your healthcare will not cover you, and your house may be foreclosed on. All while you were focusing on the latest Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Brad & Angelina news and probably blaming the liberals (they were trying to save your house, raise your salary, provide you healthcare that the insurance companies could not deny you or take away). Given the level of debate articulated by John McCain, George Bush and the Republican Party one must wonder if the fictional film Idiocracy was actually written by Nostradamus.