Go girl! Paris Hilton for president!

Maybe the camp of John McCain was running short on mental steam. Or maybe the process to elect a new US president simply got just a wee bit too long. Not that any blame would stick in this kind of game, but hey, whatever, the game just got a little bit tackier.

Or more interesting, if you will, to non-Americans who are by now close to death with boredom. And why not? For many months now, the world has been bombarded with almost nothing else but news about the US presidential campaign, as if that was all that mattered on earth.

Why, even the venerable CNN, perhaps for lack of anything better anymore to report on the campaign, has started an actual count on the number of gray hairs that have sprung on the head of Barack Obama. The reporter counted eight, I think.

So, what gave things a little nice squeeze? I guess McCain started it, quite innocently, it has to be stressed. In a new campaign ad, McCain branded Obama as nothing more than just a megacelebrity, like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

The suggestion is that while megacelebrities can turn heads, their own heads have nothing to turn, and are therefore not fit to lead. The addled Britney probably did not get it. And even if she did, it was just as well that she did not bite.

Paris was something else. She has as much balls as her sexiness would tolerate. And she has the money to sell both. The lovely Paris took out her own "political" ad, saying she was running for president, and then proceeded to prick McCain.

But first, here is what McCain said of Obama, as pictures of Britney and Paris flashed by: "He's the biggest celebrity in the world. But is he ready to lead? With gas prices soaring, Barack Obama says no to offshore drilling and says he'll raise taxes on electricity. Higher taxes, more foreign oil -- that's the real Obama."

As of this writing, Obama himself has not answered the attack, although his spokesman quickly seized on the assault and responded that, "on a day when the news was about McCain's steady stream of 'false, negative attacks,' oops, he did it again."

But the McCain camp wasn't apologetic. One spokesman said: "Will people think of this as negative advertising? Look, it's the most entertaining thing I've seen on TV in a while. I wouldn't anticipate anything about this being negative."

He was dead wrong. Paris does not always take things lying down. So, in a deliberately sexy and alluring pose, the billionaire hotel heiress responded with her own "political" ad to take on McCain and strip him down.

Paris Hilton, deliberately looking comfortable while lounging on a pool chair in a bathing suit, winkingly proceeded to talk about McCain as "that wrinkly, white-haired guy" who used her in his campaign ad.

She said she figures that that means "she's running for president, too." So she then goes on to discuss her "energy policy" and suggests a hybrid of McCain's offshore oil drilling plan and Barack Obama's incentives for new energy technology.

But before Hilton ended her ad with a shot of an American flag with the name "Paris" superimposed over it, she couldn't resist a further dig by saying McCain was old enough to remember when dancing was a sin. If she wins? She will paint the White House "pink!"

This whole episode is, of course, happening in all frivolity, to which deservedly descended the overly long-drawn American presidential campaign that, come to think about, does not even have a single officially proclaimed candidate yet to-date.

So maybe this is what should happen to the great giant, who for so long deprived everyone else of their share of the horizon, that it now must fall with a great thud, in the dainty hands of Miss Frivolity herself, now a new heroine from somebody else's comeuppance.