MORE AD NONSENSE….Are the pro-Obama forces seriously trying to get their troops outraged over this latest ad from Hillary Clinton? Just because it contains a ten-second sequence of presidential crises (Depression, Pearl Harbor, gas crisis, Katrina, etc.) and flashes a half-second clip of Osama bin Laden as part of it? Spare me. Are Democratic political ads no longer even allowed to mention the fact that the next president is going to have to deal with the war on terror?

However, there is something odd about this ad. “You need to be ready for anything,” the narrator intones portentiously — before suddenly shifting to a chirpy voice: “Especially now, with two wars, oil prices skyrocketing” blah blah blah. Am I just imaginging this? Or does the narrator really use that tonal change that you most often hear about halfway through trailers for romantic comedies, when the filmmakers want to make it clear that, no worries, everything actually turns out OK in the end? This is, of course, exactly the point they’re trying to get across in this ad (vote for Hillary and everything will be fine), but it still seemed a little jarring.