WurfWhile

John McCain dumps on Paris Hilton in a commercial slamming Obama for being like her (i.e. famous and, by implication, insubstantial). Paris Hilton might be expected to slam McCain back, but instead seems to come up with a smart retort showing policy chops - why not incorporate John McCain’s pro-offshore drilling position on energy with Barack Obama’s new energy development - and ‘oh, by the way, I Paris Hilton am more qualified than these squabbling knuckle-heads running to lead the country.’ It was a great story - and the press and commentators all over reported it. Only one problem, it was too smart by half. Paris got played. John McCain’s energy position on oil is nonsense (also see here) - and Paris endorsed it by splitting the difference between what won’t work (McCain) and what will (Obama - especially if you include conservation of energy measures that Paris overlooked). Hilton offers up a plan that only half works. The fact that the ‘Hilton Plan’ has gotten a lot of notice and seems intuitively appealing makes it worse. A lot of people think that increasing offshore drilling will impact prices short-term at the pump when in fact we’d be lucky to get a discount of a nickel or dime per gallon after waiting one to two decades for relief. While the vast majority of people who think off-shore drilling is a solution probably didn’t come to their position from Paris, she’s helped John McCain get street credibility for a terrible policy. McCain got lucky.

[I should note that while I recognized the flaw in Paris’ plan immediately and independently, Dayo Olopade has a good take on it at TNR’s The Vine.]