For weeks now John McCain and his campaign have been grumbling that the media pay far too much attention to globetrotting elitist Barack Obama and far too little attention to hometown hero McCain. With McCain's apparent shift now to a campaign strategy based on nothing but negativity, it would seem that the Unhappy Warrior is finally getting the attention he deserves.

McCain's latest series of petty attack ads and whining complaints against Obama have drawn jeers and expressions of disappointment even from McCain's supporters. Most embarrassing to Republicans was the McCain ad comparing "celebrity" Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, described by former McCain strategist John Weaver earlier this week as "childish." Time columnist and former McCain admirer Joe Klein likewise expressed disappointment at McCain's negative new line of attack: "A few months ago, I wrote that John McCain was an honorable man and he would run an honorable campaign...," Klein wrote Thursday, "...I was wrong." The same day, ABC News suggested that in going so overwhelmingly negative McCain risks caricaturing himself as an "angry, bitter old man." Meanwhile, the New York Times charged that McCain has now dropped any "straight talk" he may once have offered voters in favor of a ride on the "Low-Road Express":

"In recent weeks, Mr. McCain has been waving the flag of fear (Senator Barack Obama wants to "lose" in Iraq), and issuing attacks that are sophomoric (suggesting that Mr. Obama is a socialist) and false (the presumptive Democratic nominee turned his back on wounded soldiers).... Many voters are wondering whether a McCain presidency would be an extension of Mr. Bush’s two disastrous terms. If the way Mr. McCain is running his campaign these days is an indication, Americans don't have to wait until next January for the answer to that one."

Quickly following McCain's "celebrity" ad came the charge that Obama was playing the race card against McCain, apparently based on the fact that Obama occasionally mentions the challenges of being the first African American with a real shot at winning the presidency - a charge from the McCain camp that Eugene Robinson describes in today's Washington Post as nothing more than a piece of "snarling, mean-spirited nonsense":

"Of course the McCain campaign isn't really offended that the first black major-party candidate for president in American history might mention this distinction from time to time. The idea is to slow Obama down before he runs away with this thing, and the weapon of choice is handfuls of mud.... Remember St. John the Reformer, who promised a high-minded campaign and said he wouldn't question his opponent's patriotism? Clearly, he's been replaced by an evil twin. The switch seems to have taken place during his opponent's world tour, when Obama's prescriptions for Iraq and Afghanistan began to look prescient -- and McCain's began to look irrelevant."

Here, McCain seems to have completely forgotten his own previous opportunistic praise for Hillary Clinton's run as America's first potential female major-party presidential candidate - an attempt to pick off Clinton supporters at Obama's expense that by McCain's new standards would make him just as guilty of playing the gender card as he now says Obama is of playing the race card (one might also recall those numerous recent instances in which McCain has played the age card, the I'm-more-American-than-you card, and the tortured POW card). Also in today's Washington Post, E.J. Dionne berates McCain for running precisely the same type of campaign George W. Bush and Karl Rove ran against McCain himself in the 2000 Republican primaries:

"...It's hard to imagine the American electorate buying McCain's new advertising effort to undermine Obama by accusing him of being a "celebrity" and comparing him -- OMG! -- to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. McCain has made matters worse by falsely accusing Obama of wanting to raise taxes on electricity and by offering a phony account of why Obama decided not to visit wounded American soldiers in Europe.... By running an attack campaign that is almost a parody of George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 exertions, McCain is chucking away his greatest opportunity, which is to show that he could reform Republicanism and offer voters an alternative way of breaking with a past they have come to loathe.... Voters are in a mood to give the status quo a swift kick. Instead of offering puerile ads trashing Obama, McCain should show how he'd be the change we've been waiting for."

Be careful what you wish for, John: You just might get it, and you just might deserve it.