Linda McMahon Suckers Richard Blumenthal in Pointless JFK Ad Controversy

The flap over the use or misuse in a Linda McMahon campaign commercial of John F. Kennedy’s nearly half-century-old image and tax plan is a perfect example of the sort of thing that moves the chattering class to apoplexy, while failing to move by one iota the needle of the U.S. Senate race in Connecticut.

Naturally, JFK’s nephew cried foul. Naturally, Kevin “Don’t Call Linda McMahon My Mouthpiece” Rennie fired off a one-liner about how another Kennedy got flummoxed by a hot blonde. (Let’s face it, it is a funny line, and was probably in the playbook all along.)

Journalist Ted Mann, of The Day, has blogged and wonked his way through the apples and oranges of supply-side projections of a 1963 tax change in the context of a 2010 global economic meltdown. But guess what the bottom line is, folks? Linda McMahon, the Über Carny, has drawn Richard Blumenthal, the clueless hack, into yet another huge waste of time.

What matters in this election is whether voters will lock in on the nouveau riche McMahon family’s reputed job-creation machine, World Wrestling Entertainment – actually a death mill whose core work is performed by benefit-free independent contractors in an environment of all-the-traffic-will-bear divertissement.

By taking the bait on McMahon’s Kennedy stunt, Blumenthal has frittered away several more precious days doing what appears to be the only thing he knows: clearing his throat.

Irv Muchnick