John McCain effectively stated the dark side of Obama's popular image in Orlando on Friday:

“If there’s one thing he always delivers, it’s a great speech,” McCain said. “But I hope you’ll listen carefully, because his ideas are not always as impressive as his rhetoric.”

We wonder just how McCain must feel, running against an opponent whose greatest "merits" are youth and good speaking ability.

In and of themselves, these are hardly solid qualifications for a US president, and they're a little more along the lines of what one would expect from some sort of promising revolutionary-turned autocrat (one minute, it's "change we can believe in," the next it's "change we will conform to for the good of the motherland," or something along those lines).

The fact is that Obama's image is not that of a politician at all. It is the image of a celebrity, who is expected to look good, speak well, and do little else. Obama's supporters seem to grow continually more enamored in the style of teenage semi-obsessed Hollywood heartthrob fans. With regard to the media, he gets the same divine status as the actor who donates some spare change to a charity or actually demonstrates the knowledge that the capital is in Washington, D.C. In short, Obama would make a fine head of state - just not much of a head of government.

According to an action poll on Congress.org, 65% of respondents agree with John McCain's policy on an Iraq withdrawal timetable -- namely, that there shouldn't be one. On the other hand, 35% of respondents agree with the plan Barack Obama discussed with our pal Nuri (aka captain independent). Now, we're hardly under the impression that those who frequent Congress.org constitute a majority of voters, but it is interesting -- by which we mean COMPLETELY UNSURPRISING -- that people who care enough about politics to wade through stats on key congressional votes and who know the power ratings of the foreign relations committee also tend to agree with McCain on this foreign policy issue.

In light of the current ratio of Obama/McCain news coverage (72hrs per day/34.6 seconds per week, respectively), we'll be posting regular McCain news supplements to keep you healthy. We realize that "regular" is an ambiguous term. It doesn't matter. Our plan is to publish a weekly post that just says "McCain is still alive." This will be four times his current media coverage, and will thus make us the most trusted news service in the world.