politicians and laptops.

I'm disappointed in you, New York Times. I don't care if this is a product of the ad department. I don't care who did it, it disgusts me. This sidebar places politics within the discourse of popular culture, degrading (or should I say elevating?) political figures to the level of consumer items. Our politicians are not celebrities. They are not mass marketing tools. They aren't even symbols. They are there to serve us. They are there because we are supposed to listen to them and they are supposed to listen to us, and we are supposed to all get what we want in the end. Instead, the media treats them like untouchable figures. Or, worse, the media uses rhetoric to identify them with a mass marketed product. If we aren't careful, we can come to think of public figures in this way: bought and sold, created in marketing meetings and focus groups, disposable. They assume a brand identity. They become a part of our already consumer-saturated mindsets, furthering the consumerist ideology that so many scholars have fought to disband (or at least demystify). I usually think of The New York Times as above these things. This is just disappointing.

And, by the way, I do think Clinton is a PC and Obama is a Mac. They are simply actors. They are this way because this is all we know how to digest anymore. It's our own fault. And it's our own job to reverse this way of thinking.