Because it...um...just is.

[T]here was something surreal, and offensive, about today’s soundbite from the campaign of Senator John McCain.

The presumptive Republican nominee has embarked on a bare-knuckled barrage of negative advertising aimed at belittling Mr. Obama. The most recent ad compares the presumptive Democratic nominee for president to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton — suggesting to voters that he’s nothing more than a bubble-headed, publicity-seeking celebrity.

The ad gave us an uneasy feeling that the McCain campaign was starting up the same sort of racially tinged attack on Mr. Obama that Republican operatives, some of whom work for Mr. McCain now, ran against Harold Ford, a black candidate for Senate in Tennessee in 2006. That assault, too, began with videos juxtaposing Mr. Ford with young, white women.

Seems pretty clear to me that in comparing Obama to vacuous tabloid fodder like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton the McCain campaign intended a commentary about own vacuousness.  Being President means being a leader.  Making a leader means making hard choices well, even when those choices are unpopular.  Noting that Obama’s qualifications for President, much like Paris Hilton’s acting credential, seem to consist of a lot of PR and marketing and pizazz and not a lot of substance is a perfectly acceptable line of criticism.

And, frankly, has nothing to do with Obama’s race.  Certainly I could see McCain making the same sort of argument against John Edwards were he the Democrat nominee-to-be.

Trying to stretch McCain’s criticisms of Obama in this vein into racism (something that mimics Obama’s own efforts in that regard) is the sort of nonsense that is driving people away from papers like the Times.