McCain Hires Hollywood Agent

John McCain, whose campaign attacked Barack Obama recently for being "the biggest celebrity in the world," has just hired a Hollywood agent. Jeffrey Barry of the William Morris agency has reportedly been engaged by the McCain campaign to dig up some celebrities for the Republican National Convention. And here we were all thinking celebrity was a bad thing. At least according to McCain.

Looking at McCain's own biography one hardly sees a man who shuns fame himself, though. McCain's Internet Movie Database listing contains 47 entries, reaching back to 1998 with his appearance in the documentary Return with Honor, and includes such highlights as his appearance in the comedy Wedding Crashers, the TV series 24, as well as many appearances on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Tonight Show, Jay Leno, Letterman, The View, and so many others it puts some actual "celebrities" to shame. His book Faith of My Fathers, his autobiography, was a made for TV movie in 2005.

McCain's four book bibliography, dating back to Faith of My Fathers (1999) and culminating with Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them (2007). In the tradition both of big Hollywood stars like Elizabeth Taylor and minor celebrities like Paris Hilton, McCain had his own story ghost written. With a resume like McCain's it might even be suggested that there will be at least one celebrity at the 2008 Republican National Convention. But then, Republican darling Arnold Schwarzenegger will also be there, so that would make at least two.

One can hardly blame McCain for his years spend burnishing his celebrity image, though. It's a sad fact that every US President in recent memory was well-known before he was actually elected president. Maybe someday we could all be persuaded to go to the voting booth and pull that lever for some guy in Wyoming that made absolutely no television appearances, of whom we have never even heard before election day. That would raise some questions, though. Such as: "who the heck is this person we're all voting for?"

With conservative outlets calling McCain the second coming of Reagan, himself a movie star, while simultaneously bemoaning Barack Obama as a "celebrity," it's starting to seem like the McCain campaign fell down the Bush/Rove rabbit hole. Maureen Dowd quoted an associate of McCain in her Aug. 5 column as saying: "John's eaten up with envy. His image of himself was always the handsome, celebrity flyboy." Even Paris Hilton gets what's really going on. It's not that John Mc Cain dislikes Barack Obama because Obama is a celebrity. His hates the fact that Obama is a hot celebrity.