On one side, a cranky old man who has trouble filling the rec room at a retirement home. On the other, a thoughtful orator who packs football stadiums. And somehow this is a virtue in the former and a detriment to the latter. Or, as the New York Times delicately puts the Republican framing of the point, "Mr. Obama... a media sensation lacking the résumé to be president." Obama according to the Times has to be leery of the "the celebrity image that dogs him."
Of all the smears served up by the Republicans and swallowed whole by the mainstream press, this one stands out for its paradoxy, not to say its imbecility. Are not famous politicians by definition celebrities, particularly if the presidential candidate of a major party? And is Obama to be vilified because he's extremely good at his job? That seems especially worthy of criticism to the GOP. Indeed, only Republican logic can make sense of the celebrity smear.
The GOP argument is this: Embracing who you are is reprehensible. Being gifted at what you do is suspicious. Failing to conceal both conditions from the voters and the press is unforgivable.
Given the Republican leadership, we see their point. George W. Bush has always pretended to be a cowboy boot wearing good 'ol boy instead of a scion of limitless wealth and privilege. He's not exactly gifted at being president. And both his phony personna and his incompetence have always been in plain sight for all who took the trouble to look.
As for John McCain, the maverick myth accords ill with the party-line reality of the man. The folksy "my friends" line of patter doesn't suit the eight (ten?) homes and Gucci loafers. He's a foreign policy expert who thinks Iraq borders Pakistan and that Czechoslovakia still exists, and a would-be president poised to step into an economic crisis who admits to knowing nothing about economics. He's good at crashing airplanes, marrying heiresses, servicing his loyal constituents, but not much else. And as with his president, his record of fakery and ineptitude is anything but hidden.
Considering that the Bush Republican party has come to represent charlatanry and incompetence, and that McCain is cut from Bush's cloth, it's no wonder the GOP is made desperately uncomfortable by a candidate so very different from its own.