Over at TPM, Josh tries to work the refs a little:

Andrew Sullivan makes a good point. For the 'celebrity' in the campaign, how many sitcoms has Barack Obama done guest spots on? How many movies has he done cameos in? How many times has he hosted Saturday Night Live. As John McCain's IMDB bio shows, he's done a lot. 24, Wedding Crashers, The Tony Danza show, numerous appearances on Saturday Night Live. It's another example of the curve that John McCain gets graded on.

Well, yeah.

But it's not just McCain, and it's not just the press corps. Nearly all Republicans not only get graded on a curve, but they know it. In 2004, they knew they could defend a service-ducking incumbent president by smearing the Democratic war hero opponent.

The fact that the traditional media + McCain = truelove4evah only exacerbates the underlying issue.

But we need to get beyond acting surprised. Everyone. Obama included.

Earlier today, Obama started to get satisfyingly aggressive:

"Now two points, one, they know they're lying about what my energy plan is, but the other thing is they're making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent. It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."

"These guys" = Republicans.

"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant" could continue 'because apparently they seem incapable of running the country.'

With the traditional media in tow, McCain and the Republican party will keep calling the sky green and smearing Democrats as colorblind. It's a fine-tuned tactic we've seen since Nixon. But pointing it out isn't enough - we've got to give people a sense of what's behind why McCain is attacking Obama so falsely and superficially in order for an actual impression of McCain to sink in.

Until then, expect to see the absurdity increase. I'm waiting for McCain to attack Obama's book deals from one of Cindy's estates.