Scott Whitlock writes, "The hosts and correspondents on Thursday's 'Good Morning America' did not hold back in expressing their displeasure over a new John McCain ad that depicts Barack Obama as a celebrity and compares him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton":

Co-host Diane Sawyer hyperbolically derided the spot as a "political nuclear attack" and asserted that the campaign is taking "a strange new turn."

GMA news anchor Chris Cuomo seemed equally flummoxed. He opened the show by asserting, "Some odd campaign news today. There's a round of new campaign commercials that really have us scratching our heads here." A bewildered Sawyer agreed: "What sort of committee meeting do you have where you say, 'Let's use Britney!' 'Let's use Paris!' Yes, that'll be a blow!" In a second segment, former Clinton aide-turned journalist George Stephanopoulos claimed the commercial could be seen as "angry, cranky, too negative" and McCain himself might be viewed as "a bit of a whiner given the fact that most polls that he is behind."

At one point, Sawyer queried, "Will it read as sour grapes and boomerang?" The entire tone of the morning show's coverage seemed desperately out of touch. It seems obvious that McCain was attempting to, in a not-so subtle way, depict the Obama campaign as superficial and not ready for prime time. And since the Arizona senator must deal with a media who both fawns and defends Obama, how can such attack ads be surprising?

You know you're over the target when you start receiving flak. The local San Jose CBS station led with the story last night; their teaser ad also hyped it as if it was some sort of out-of-bounds attack. But the danger of a politician acting like a rock star is that he sets himself up to be treated like one by his opponent. Jann Wenner's wildest fantasies to the contrary, we don't elect rock stars, we just buy their records.

Related: Leave Barack Alone! And Robert Stacy McCain has some thoughts that are worth reading as well:

If Obama starts sliding in the polls, he's going to be like a guy at the steering wheel of a vanload of backseat drivers, with the MSM geniuses endlessly second-guessing his every move, and the likes of Keith Olbermann and David Gregory wondering aloud what the hell is wrong with his campaign. There is nothing more beautiful to behold than the sight of Conventional Wisdom crumbling at it's first collision with reality.

Robert notes that "The grumbling from the MSM's backseat drivers has already begun."

Meanwhile, Rachel Lucas blames "beer goggles", and Confederate Yankee explores the inevitable result of too much drinking: the next day's hangover.