"Let's talk about this silly, frivolous, nothing stuff so that America won't pay attention."

Watching this video, I thought, first, ooh, he's good. And then, what's with his hair? It seems to be coming undone in the heat... is that... is that a toupée?

Anyway, I came to this video via Jake Tapper:

There's an interesting meme of Democratic victimology developing here…

In addition to former Sen. John Edwards, D-NC, saying that media attention on his hair stems from powerful interests who "want to shut me up", it should be noted that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, is also wading a bit into the waters of victimology…

After being the first one to really amp up her disagreement with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, from Monday night's debate -- her campaign sent out the video of their respective answers before the debate was even over, and she was the first one to personally use perjorative adjectives against Obama -- she's now trying to raise money claiming he "attacked" her.

"Last week, one of the leading Republican candidates equated Hillary with Karl Marx. Yesterday, one of the leading Democratic candidates called her 'Bush-Cheney lite,'" wrote Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle in the e-mail. "Hillary is under attack from opponents on all sides. When you're attacked, you expect your family and friends to stand with you…"

The short, 440-word fundraising appeal uses a form of the word "attack" six times. With Clinton as the victim, naturally.

But of course we should attack them! They can fight back, and then we can respond to that, perhaps by saying that they're indulging in "victimology." They need to think through whether it helps their cause very much to seem thin-skinned and to act prudishly offended when we speak of superficial things.

You know damned well that they are using image to try to manipulate us. (They never complain when we say they look fabulous.) They'd like to be free to pursue their political ambitions by taking advantage their good looks -- why has Edwards done so well over the years? -- but to stop us from engaging on the image level. They'd like all their subliminal campaigning to slip into our subconsciousness unchallenged.

They want all their critics to engage with them only on the substantive policy analysis level where, frankly, America won't pay attention whether there's also any silly, frivolous, nothing stuff to distract them or not.