Who is Meghan McCain and why should you care?

Meghan McCain is the 24 year old daughter of Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain. Her father may not have won the presidential election last year, but his daughter certainly won a new found celebrity status following the campaign. Meghan now writes for the Daily Beast and seems to show up regularly on television, including appearances on Larry King, Bill Maher and the View. I will be honest that I did not know much about her until I started reading about some of her political views. What caught my attention was a comment that she considered herself a social liberal and economic conservative, which pretty well describes how I feel about most things. More importantly it describes the views of my three sons (who are around Meghan's age) and most of their friends. (those are the folks who will be electing our political leaders in years to come)

What I really find interesting as I have read more about Meghan is the reaction she generates from the far right and far left of America. She, much like her father, has staked out a pretty moderate position in the political spectrum. She wrote a column questioning the Republican party and its support of ultra-right journalist Ann Coulter and other far-right politics. In response conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham basically said Meghan was young, stupid and fat. (when they get personal, it means you have already won the argument) She appeared on "Real Time with Bill Maher" and was taken to task by left leaning Paul Begala for some of her statements. Leftist columnist seem to think Begala "schooled" Meghan. Personally I think Begala just comes across as mean spirited. Watch and decide for yourself.

Meghan's latest public drama comes because last night she posted a twitpic of herself holding a book about Andy Warhol. (I am pretty sure it's not the book that garnered so much attention)

Meghan seems to have a pretty complex set of beliefs, which I think is probably true of most of us. Unfortunately for her, there are also a lot of people who like to create "boundary issues" to help them identify who their friends and enemies are. When someone comes along that crosses many of those boundaries, these types of folks don't know how to deal with it. Meghan is also a young, attractive, up and coming next generation of American. As dogs get older they get meaner and more protective of their territory.

I should also point out that in today's short attention span, media saturated, sound bite world it is much easier to get folks attention (and make a living) by being a highly opinionated, yelling and screaming media head than it is to sit down and have a rational, even tempered discussion about all of our complex beliefs and how we might find some common ground to agree on and how to get along with each other.

Of course given the buzz about her TwitPic, Meghan may have just schooled that whole older generation on how to be complex and still get people's attention.