Why Can't He Be Both, Like the Late Earl Warren?

James Poniewozik puts his finger on why the McCain movement seems so rudderless right now:

You can make Obama into Britney Spears, or John Kerry, or Malcolm X. I'm not sure you can make him into all three at the same time. (Is there a template in American culture for an Ivy-league-snob, black-militant, out-of-control former Mouseketeer?)

You actually can cross John Kerry with Britney Spears. Unfortunately for McCain, the result is John F. Kennedy.

Update: On the other hand, it's not hard to imagine someone who is simultaneously (a) vacuous and (b) an intellectual, with (c) a touch of radical chic. Hell, I knew people just like that in college. And I wouldn't want any of them to be president. Maybe Poniewozik has inadvertently identified a winning strategy.