Forget the fact that should Barack Obama be elected he’d become America’s first black president. The question apparently being raised by John McCain’s camp is—should he be elected, will Obama become America’s first “Messiah?”

In a new emailed ad that is funny if you have a sense of humor but an example of mean politics if you do not, McCain portrays Obama as a Messiah like figure referred to simply as “The One.”

Says the announcer : “It shall be known that in 2008, the world shall be blessed. They will call him: The One.”

But since this is an ad designed to mock Obama and not praise him, the announcer goes on to say that Obama may, indeed, be The One, but than asks, “But is he ready to lead?”

Celebrity, Cult Figure or Both?

Earlier, McCain’s campaign pumped out a different ad comparing Obama with celebrities such as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and suggested strongly that, like them, Obama lacks substance.

An Obama spokesman quickly pounced on the ad–learning from the mistakes of previous elections where the Democrats didn’t respond quickly enough to Republican claims.

“It’s downright sad that on a day when we learned that 51,000 Americans lost their jobs, a candidate for the presidency is spending all of his time and the powerful platform he has, on these sorts of juvenile antics,”an Obama spokesman is quoted as saying by Reuters.

An Obama flip-flop?

Meantime, Obama seemingly has handed McCain another weapon to use against him. He reversed his previous stance and now says , as a compromise, he can support some new off-shore oil drilling–this after saying repeatedly that he would and could not.

Of course, if McCain is right and Obama (whose most interesting speech thus far carries the quote: “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for!) really is the Messiah, then maybe Obama can wave his hand and turn water into oil! (And maybe just a little to wine?)

Say Amen.

For more news commentary on this and other subjects, please visit www.notimetothinkbook.com and learn more about the October publication of No Time To Think, a book about the menace of media speed.