Respecting People

Note that Obama did not say he wasn't a celebrity. He said McCain may think all sorts of things about celebrities, but my life story is as I just described it: rather prosaic. The culture of celebrity is vicious and vulgar, but individual celebrities should not be despised, but rather allowed their privacy. With their oeuvre, they have given the public enough. They are people; we don't own them. McCain uses them as a punchline. Obama's rejoinder manages to avoid even using them as a foil.