Vile

So if there's one thing John McCain can no longer run on, it's character.

The Obama-Britney-Paris celebrity ad gets the BAGnews semiotics treatment, and it's brutal. First, the sexual race-baiting:

I agree with Josh that McCain's video hit man (reprising his Harold Ford handiwork) is playing heavily on racist allusions to sexual promiscuity and even rape.

If you study the individual frames, in fact, you'll see how the fades juxtaposing Obama and Britney, and Obama and Paris Hilton are virtually identical.

In each, Obama -- framed as a protean black celebrity (like O.J.) -- comes up on the woman, each an oversized icon, and creates the digital effect of a physical merger...On the other hand, the difference between the two -- Britney more "receptive" and Paris seemingly "unwilling" -- also resonates with the two dimensions of this ugly stereotype, one objectifying the white woman's supposed secretly lust for the black man's sexual prowess, and the other representing the more predatory "take it by force" scenario.)

And McCain dares to say Obama's playing the race card. He even says he's proud of this divisive, issues-avoiding, swiftboating commercial. Has he no shame -- or is he just playing the "Playing the Race Card" card?

Sounds like McCain campaign "outside advisor" Karl Rove to me. Is there a more perfect harbinger of George W. Bush's Third Term?

But there's worse. BAGnewsNotes uncovers the deeper evil of the ad, the bone-chilling call to violence:

But then, watching the video without the sound, and looking at it slowly, bit-by-bit (lessening the "distraction" of the celebrity meme, and considering the subliminal allusions hitting the brain as fast as the scenery from a speeding train), the imagery starts to suggest other inferences.

Beginning with a sequence of flashes paired with isolated hands, followed immediately by a sequence (above) from what looks like the last Democratic Convention (where Obama made his first major jolt, but where the scene itself bears next-to-no direct connection to Obama having his picture taken), now all the "pop-pop-pop" and the violently-sensory "flash-flash-flash" seem indistinguishable from explosions.

With those fireworks serving as a (possible Denver) table setting, and just on-the-other-side of the seductive Britney/Paris segment, we arrive at this chronological sequence in which Obama is mingling with the Berlin crowd, a single nervous-looking Secret Service agent fixed off the candidate's left shoulder...

...I don't even want to think what this looks like to me...

Thank goodness Obama can take care of himself:

John McCain is shrinking by the day.