The New York Times reports this morning that McCain’s people have taken to calling their opponent “The One.” And not in a nice way. After complaining about the press’s coverage of Obama’s trip abroad, McCain adviser and speechwriter Mark Salter said, “There is nothing you can do about it. ‘The One’ went to Europe and attention must be paid.”

It’s a double-bind for McCain. He was the one who kept nagging Obama about going to Iraq and Afghanistan to see “conditions on the ground,” and now that he’s gone and done that, and the prime minister of Iraq has made it clear he agrees with the Democrat’s 16-month withdrawal timetable and US troops have cheered his arrival, McCain can only sputter. There may yet be fallout from Obama’s meetings (last night the talking heads of cable news were already starting to cluck about the Dems’ presumptive nominee being presumptuously presidential in talking about his meetings with al-Maliki and other heads of state) but I find it amusing that they are trying to damn their opponent by labeling him the Messiah.

In the Matrix movies Keanu Reeves played Neo, whose name is an anagram for One, as in The One, as in the hero who would awaken from a machine-induced slumber and lead the people of the future to overthrow the robots that were using them like AA batteries. Despite its disappointing sequels (and the very notion that Keanu Reeves might be our saviour — he played the Buddha once, too, meaning Hollywood’s concept of enlightenment is literally half-baked) The Matrix worked because it drew on the universal spiritual idea of awakening and, yes, The One who can show you how it’s done. (The slo-mo bullet-dodging and Carrie-Anne Moss’s bondage outfits helped, too.)

Of course, Salter’s dig is just part of the Republican’s larger plaint: the media is smitten with Obama and ignoring their decent, honorable candidate. In an ad for an upcoming independent propaganda film entitled Hype: The Obama Effect Tucker Carlson sniffs, “The press loves Obama. I mean not just love but sort of like an early teenage crush.” (Carlson, a rapidly fading former conservative darling, should know about such crushes: his plan to become the next George Will — “I’ve got the bow tie!” — was snuffed when Jon Stewart famously bitch-slapped him on CNN’s now extinct Crossfire back in 2004. “You have a responsibility to the public discourse and you failed miserably” may have been the nicest thing the Daily Show host said to him.)

This tack, familiar to most kids with young siblings (“Stop paying attention to him! Look at me!”) didn’t work for Hillary and it won’t work for McCain. It’s like Perry Como complaining to Ed Sullivan that the Beatles get top billing because the kids think they’re so great. The press is smitten, okay — with a once-in-lifetime political story of a politician’s meteoric and seemingly unstoppable rise, and you can’t blame lifelong political reporters from covering this comet’s trajectory with some sense of wonder (if not One-der). McCain’s campaign needs a juju infusion, and quick, and putting Mitt Romney on the ticket ain’t going to do it. Maybe they’re hoping that the Tab Hunter of the GOP primaries will make McCain look more lifelike but without a messiah of their own, the Republicans are dead in November. Back to the desert, boys.