Martin Eisenstadt’s Blog

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems that the new McCain ad criticizing Obama for being a celebrity has ruffled some unintended feathers. I, for one, quite liked the ad, but I hear whispers from the inner campaign staff that the phone was burning off the hook today with calls from Paris Hilton’s grandfather, William Barron Hilton (co-chair of the Hilton Hotel empire), furious that the McCain ad drew an unflattering comparison between Obama and his own granddaughter.

It seems that the elder Hilton has donated $18,400 to the McCain campaign, and $35,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the last couple of years. (Paris’s father, Rick Hilton, has given an additional $6,900 to the McCain campaign. Suffice it to say, he’s none too pleased either.)

Apparently, the elder Hiltons had breathed a sigh of relief that Paris was starting to get her act together since hitting rock bottom with her stay in jail last year, when all of a sudden the McCain ad compares her unfavorably to Britney Spears and Barack Obama.

I suspect that heads will roll at the McCain headquarters - if not within the staff, then I wouldn’t be surprised if Steve Schmidt starts looking for a new consulting firm for the next round of ads. This is a reminder to my brethren at the Campaign: don’t bite the hand that feeds us.

Paris Hilton isn’t just a tabloid tart to be tossed around willy-nilly. She’s the living brand name of one of America’s most successful global corporations. It’s no wonder her grandfather’s upset: every time Paris is in the news, fewer people stay at their hotels. Try explaining that to The Blackstone Group - the hedge fund firm that bought into Hilton Hotels last year. Blackstone chairman Peter G. Peterson gave $30,800 to the McCain campaign this year. Guess who also called the campaign today?

Oh well. So much for my comped room at the Minneapolis Hilton for the convention.

Update: Here’s a few related posts to this item I posted last night. From all ends of the spectrum:

Michelle Malkin, Wonkette, Los Angeles Times, Debbie Schlussel, Huffington Post, DailyKos

The simple answer is no. But as long as the far left (and yes, some on the right) see Meghan McCain’s rare use of the keffiyeh as fair political game, then the Obama daughters’ abiding love of the Jonas Brothers should be noticed (not dwelled upon, but noticed) as well.

As you can see from the number of comments on and links to my last post, the response was overwhelmingly accusatory, vitriolic and vulgar. So I wanted to clarify a few things. Perhaps I had overestimated the intelligence of my left-wing critics when I failed to spell out in big letters that the final paragraph of my last post was facetious and used hyperbole to make a humorous point. A joke, dare we say. Sadly, one deficit of the blogosphere is that people often react to buzz-words, rather than whole sentences, paragraphs, or - heaven forbid - the context of prior posts on the same blog. Forgive me if I didn’t hyperlink every single reference in the paragraph to something contextual, ironic, or topical (usually my associate Jimmy does that for me). So, without further ado, Jimmy goes to town linking that infamous paragraph:

First Meghan McCain wears a few mis-chosen keffiyehs, and next the Obama girls will be spotted wearing Che Guevara t-shirts. At this rate, it may not matter who wins the election: the Jonas Brothers will play the inaugural ball, Miley Cyrus will be showering in the Lincoln bedroom and Chief Justice Roberts will terror-fist bump whomever he swears in over the Koran. Makes me wish for the days when the Beatles were the biggest threat to national security.

OK, I hope we’re not reading too much into this, but in the course of responding to media requests regarding the Jonas Brothers keffiyeh controversy, one of my interns alerted me to a story in the Indian press that revealed that Barack Obama’s daughters are big fans of the keffiyeh-wearing Jonas Brothers. All I can say is, “Oy.”

Now, I’m not one of those McCain supporters who believes in perpetuating ugly innuendos about Barack Obama’s faith or even his middle name. I believe Senator McCain can win in November fair and square. But….

First Meghan McCain wears a few mis-chosen keffiyehs, and next the Obama girls will be spotted wearing Che Guevara t-shirts. At this rate, it may not matter who wins the election: the Jonas Brothers will play the inaugural ball, Miley Cyrus will be showering in the Lincoln bedroom and Chief Justice Roberts will terror-fist bump whoever he swears in over the Koran. Makes me wish for the days when the Beatles were the biggest threat to national security.

By way of an update to yesterday’s observation about Disney’s popular Jonas Brothers boy band, apparently the web has picked up on this story in strange ways. On the one hand, Shawarma Mayor very generously linked to me and added his own well-reasoned thoughts on the matter. Sadly, though, he has been attacked (Fark.com) from all sides of the pop-culture media, and has issued his own eloquent update today. I agree with his points completely, so let me just quote him:

Was it a keffiya? Maybe not, but perhaps fark readers should ask themselves why are they attracted to reading about it? Yea, I know the answer – Jonas Brothers are pop stars. I stumbled into something explosive, pop and politics…..

Now to the keffiya point – I’m not going to argue in favor or against it. For some it might not be understood how a garment can be offensive, so google it and read Debbie Schlussel’s or Michel Malkin’s point of view on the subject. It should be disturbing to you if something that is offensive to many becomes very popular and those who wear it are simply clueless as to why.

I will not and would not call a person a supporter of terrorism just because he wore something, especially not when he doesn’t know what it means. I will never fault an Arab for wearing what is obviously rooted in his culture and means a lot more to him than what it has turned out to symbolize in the latest few decades. But try to grasp this point; making a kefiye a popular and acceptable western attire is disturbing to many. If you don’t respect their opinion – at least acknowledge their sensitivity.

Let me just add - as I’ve said on this blog before - that it’s one thing for Meghan McCain to inadvertently wear a keffiyeh once or twice in public. But from what I hear from my cohorts on the campaign team, John McCain has wisely counseled his daughter, and you won’t be seeing her wear it again. The difference here is that Disney is proudly exploiting the poor fashion choices of these presumptively talented young kids, even after the Rachael Ray controversy came and went. The imagineers at Disney should know better.

Of course, like Shawarma Mayor, my principle bailiwick is in the realm of politics, not pop culture. Apologies to him for having to take the brunt of the untoward comments, so if you must comment about this matter, please feel free to have your say here.

For anyone over the age of 16 or younger than 3, you may not be aware that the biggest influence on the youth of today are the squeaky-clean Disney-manufactured boy band, the Jonas Brothers. Yes, they’re cute, but why is it that even in the wake of the recent Rachael Ray controversy, Disney is still parading the boys out proudly wearing keffiyehs?

Sure, some conspiracy theorists will no doubt trot out the boys’ Christian upbringing, Disney’s alleged history of anti-semitism, or some sleeper-cell conspiracy from Al Quaeda. But I reject such poppycock. Chances are, the brothers have been too curled up in their Disney incubator to be aware of the cultural insensitivity involved when you wear a keffiyeh in the manner of Hezbollah. Is Kevin Jonas (aka “The Romantic One”) trying to seduce America’s young girls into being the next generation of Hamas sympathizers? Probably not. But why take the chance? (My advice: if you really need to hide a hickey, stick to the Charles Nelson Reilly ascot.)

While Disney does damage control on their last manufactured popstar - throwing poor Miley “Hannah Montana” Cyrus under the proverbial JoBros tourbus because of a few indiscreet cellphone pictures - they should think about the bigger image they’re projecting with their newest stars. Or maybe they are? There are over a billion Muslims in the world, and probably not all of them have bought their Jonas Brothers lunchboxes…yet.

Update July 17th: This post has apparently created quite the uproar. See today’s post for more.

You’ll recall that in yesterday’s post I was one of the first in the States to point out the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s hoaxing of a missile photograph. As I predicted, there has been “the slew of inevitable retractions and handwringing coming from the US media.” And as I further suggested yesterday, there are now a mountain of second-day stories milking the doctored-photo angle to show that the Iranians have overblown their whole missile program.

This is exactly what I was afraid of. There were very talented photo editors at newspapers across the country - to say nothing of AFP/Getty and AP - who I’m quite certain had their doubts about the veracity of the photo and let it slip into their pages, knowing that they could always blame Iran and the Revolutionary Guards if the photo turned out to be fake. I know a lot of bloggers in Israel and the US are claiming credit for being the first to ‘out’ the photo. But they bicker over that credit at their own peril.

The photo was so obviously fake (insert ‘it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out’ joke here), I’m quite certain that at least 5% of the people who saw it worldwide figured there was something wrong with it the moment they saw it. The real question is why more people didn’t notice it right away - particularly the ones whose jobs it is to notice fake photographs going into their newspapers.

(I’m wrapped up in something now, but I’ll have Jimmy add appropriate links later today.)

Did you wake up this morning and see this top picture in your local paper? If you live in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, or watch MSNBC, you did. Attributed to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (apparently, the new Reuters as a source of photojournalism), the picture was obviously doctored (AP just released the second picture). It’s clear that the smoke patterns of the missile in the middle were clumsily copied from those on the right. Video of the same event showed that only three missiles fired simultaneously (anyone with a hint of military experience knows that the odds of getting four missiles to fire simultaneously enough for a photo-op are slim). The Israeli media have already picked up on the story, but let’s wait for the slew of inevitable retractions and handwringing coming from the US media who ran the photos. (unless they did it on purpose, just to give a second-day story to how the Revolutionary Guard are a threat to the international photoshop industry. It’s hard to see a photo editor not catching this obvious deceit in about five seconds.) Either way, it will be a distraction from the very real threat posed by Iran. If you live in Tel Aviv, it won’t matter if you get hit by three or four missiles.

Of course, maybe it was someone at AP who put out the fake? If what they say is now true and Sepah News (the Revolutionary Guards) put out the second photo, then it does beg the question of who doctored the first. I’m sure that there are already spunky young bloggers hot the trail of this hoax.

Update: Photorants just posted a great piece on the controversy wherein he quotes the New York Times as saying:

As news spread across the world of Iran’s provocative missile tests, so did an image of four missiles heading skyward in unison. Unfortunately, it appeared to contain one too many missiles, a fact that had not emerged before the photo appeared on the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites.

I find it hard to believe that not a single photo editor at the LATimes, NYTimes, Chicago Trib, etc. noticed the doctored photo.

Congratulations to Steve Schmidt on his recent appointment. A consummate professional and brilliant strategist, Steve is admired and respected across the political spectrum and within the McCain team. We’re all proud and eager to be at his service.

Like the surge in Iraq and the rescue raid in Colombia, I have no doubt that Steve’s hiring will prove to be a turning point, a seminal shift in our road to victory. I wish I could say the same for the firing of Willie Randolph as my beloved Mets continue to disappoint.

John McCain is back! After a reshuffling of his campaign staff, McCain was on the ground in Colombia overseeing the 4 billion dollars a year we spend down there.

What a joy witnessing the Betancourts on hands and knees thanking God and country for that dramatic rescue. Ingrid Betancourt is clearly a friend of the West, a child of Europe. It wouldn’t surprise me if she quickly reentered politics as an ally of Uribe and an advocate of our geopolitical interests. Ingrid will surely make a staunch ally in our war against indigenous rumblings as represented by Chavez, Morales and the FARC. And McCain being down there on the day of her release was no coincidence.

The question voters need to start asking is whether Obama will continue the good fight we are waging not just in Iraq but in Latin America as well. My guess is that Obama would cut and run, abandoning our southern border to Marxists and terrorists.

Another reason to support a leader tried and tested not just in battle but in the ways of the world. I’m sorry, Wesley Clark: Community organizing (whatever that means) on the south side of Chicago does not prepare one to confront the FARC or to stage rescue raids deep in the Colombian jungle.