Paris Hilton's stinging rebuke of McCain's "celebrity" ad -- all the more stinging because she expressed more coherence on energy policy in a few seconds than McCain has during the whole campaign -- has caused quite a stir. In under 2 days, the video has now racked up 4,317,326 views, the post over at Funny or Die has 1,468 comments and the McCain campaign felt compelled to respond to the very person they caricatured as so vacuuous just days before.

Via Matt Stoller:

Due to the extraordinary number of inquiries, please see our campaign's response to Paris Hilton's recently released video in which she puts forward her version of an energy plan:

"It sounds like Paris Hilton supports John McCain's 'all of the above' approach to America's energy crisis - including both alternatives and drilling.  Paris Hilton might not be as big a celebrity as Barack Obama, but she obviously has a better energy plan." ---Tucker Bounds, spokesman John McCain 2008  

Tucker Bounds

But as Matt says, McCain's concept of compromise -- this "all of the above" claptrap -- is not all of the above at all. For while Barack has said he would support some off-shore drilling as part of a comprehensive energy compromise, John McCain still won't budge on what to him appears to be the dealbreaker with the Gang of 10 compromise: raising taxes on oil companies.

dday elaborates:

But McCain has already gone on the record against the Gang of 10 compromise:

A spokesman for Sen. McCain said that while he "applauds the bipartisan effort," he wouldn't support the proposal because "he cannot and will not support legislation that raises taxes."

Which opens up a huge gap for Obama to exploit, when everybody figures out that making oil companies rich(er) is McCain's only objective.

So on both substance and politics, Paris Hilton, with some help from some refreshingly aggressive rhetoric and advertising from Barack Obama and a media that's itching for a fight, has knocked John McCain back on his heels.

From Chris Bowers:

They have gotten into a spat with Paris Hilton, which there is basically no way to win. Hilton has nothing to lose, and the back and forth just highlights the frivolic idiocy of McCain's recent attacks. [...]

McCain is going to be on the defensive now, even though he started the attack in the first place.

Umm, thanks, Paris.