Setting The Table For Denver, LA Times Plays "The Celebrity Card"

Would anyone care to suggest that the "celebrity" virus launched by the McCain campaign hasn't well infected the traditional media?

As well, please don't tell me that the LAT is somehow absolved from visually and textually perpetuating the slander under some pretext of simply portraying the portrayal.  I'm particularly interested in your take as the window and the question inside versus outside (among other things) makes this pic particularly complex.

From my vantage, I see this image as having a particularly high toxicity quotient, not just "playing the celebrity card" but also suggesting Barack Obama — opposite the squad and gawkers and citizen paparazzi — as not just a rock star, but perhaps an animal in the zoo.

I just have to add, the caption was lowly enough already — parroting "naive," "celebrity" and "unprepared" — without that finishing reference to danger.

Update 8/20: The NYT has the same shot on this AM's front page, with a more innocuous caption: "Senator Barack Obama arrived Tuesday at the Sheraton hotel in Raleigh, N.C., creating a camera-worthy moment from two sides."

(h/t: Lauren)

Barack Obama's image suffers amid John McCain attacks, poll finds (LAT)

(image: Joe Raedle / Getty Images. North Carolina)