The modern word 'glamour' is descended from an older and more specific Celtic word, 'glammer.' It means having the ability to "cast a spell," to "create an illusion," and more specifically, to being able to convince others to see you as something you are not.
If you have seen the Ridley Scott film "Legend," think about the scene in which a mischievous pixie, hot for Tom Cruise's bod, takes on the appearance of his girlfriend in an attempt to get him to jump her bones. For that matter, think about Tom Cruise and his entire career. Now think about the Republican "Dream Team," its can- didates for President and Vice President. John McCain is pretty much the poster boy for glammer. His early life was even more of a testament to failure than George W. Bush's, and that's saying something. He managed to milk his father and grandfather's names to get into Annapolis, graduated in the lowest 1% of that class and of his flight school, and then, after his father again used his influence to have his son made a pilot (which he shouldn't have been, given his per- formance in flight school), young John preceded to lose five multimillion-dollar aircraft in quick succession. For the last fiasco, he wound up spending five years in a POW camp. And yet what is the illusory projected image he has been able to craft out of such a record of monumental failure? That he's a some kind of "hero" or "patriot." Yeah, right, and Mighty Casey totally knocked that last pitch out of the Mudville ballpark. Then McCain went on to *continue* to milk not only his father's reputation and his own ability to project illusion but his second wife's money to buy himself into politics. The first wife wasn't good enough -- she'd gotten herself too scarred up to be of use to him -- so he fell for the first flashy bimbo with a lot of money and a lot of glammer that he met, and used *her* to add to his illusory image. And now he's done it again, by choosing another bimbo whose whole life -- from teenage beauty queen to small-town mayor to Governor who is seemingly hell-bent on selling Alaska's beauty and natural resources down the river so they don't compete with her own -- seems to be based on glammer. McCain met her ONCE, and was so wrapped by *her* ability to project an illusory image that he forget his own campaign slogan -- "country first" -- and seems to have made his snap decision based on "cunt first." These people got to where they are by FAKING IT, and are so *aware* of this on some level that the worst thing they can think of to call their political opponents is what their whole lives have been about faking -- celebrity. Obama doesn't need glammer; he has real charisma. McCain and Palin don't have an ounce of it, and have to rely on cheap flash and manipulated images of themselves to achieve what Obama can generate just by smiling and being himself. The larger problem, however, is that these faux political celebrities who are running against a real one might be RIGHT. Look at the people Americans think are cool. Madonna, rap stars without any talent, Paris Hilton, or...dare I say it...George W. Bush. Americans have a strong *tradition* of buying into glammer, into the surface illusion, and of being incapable of looking beneath the surface to see if there is anything underneath it. And they might do it again. They might decide that a couple of posturing pissants projecting a false image of their past and America's future is ENOUGH, and vote for them. Americans might be so brainwashed into falling for glammer that they can no longer see past it to the vapidity that the glammer is trying to hide. After all, they still flock to see Tom Cruise's movies, so how smart can they be?
