Refusing to let an opportunity for some good panderin' pass them by, both John McCain and Barack Obama taped messages to air during last night's premiere of Lifetime's Army Wives, a show which is presumably about either wives in the army, wives of people in the army, people married to the army itself (not figuratively), a group of wives that somehow resemble an army, or some combination of the four. (I'm using my context clues.)
The messages of both candidates were essentially the same: we really should support and honor the troops. But Obama's message was a little more believable, if only because it didn't begin with the candidate essentially saying, "Whenever I watch Army Wives–which I only watch because my silly wife makes me. Believe me: I wouldn't be caught dead watching Lifetime: television for women. I mean, it's for ladies, and I couldn't be more masculine…."
You can almost see the teleprompter reflected in his tired eyes. If you're going to pretend to watch a show just to pander to its audience, at least do it all the way. The whole, "Cindy makes me watch it with her" thing just makes you come off like a lying politician who's passive agressive towards his wife and afraid of admitting to watching Lifetime, instead of just a plain-old lying politician.