atop a giant mountain of human skulls.

Okay, so in the quote above, McCain pulls out the classic advertising catch-phrase / formula: “if you like —, you’ll love —!”.

However, I don’t think he means it in the original positive-association version (“if you like breakfast cereal brand, you’ll love savory snack mix made with aforementioned breakfast cereal brand!”), and it doesn’t really work as the ironic subversion (“if you like RISD, you’ll love Brooklyn”).

Maybe he was trying to go for the ironic twist, but to do it right, he should have reversed the two variables: “if you like Canada, you’ll love Obama’s health care plan”… That would have done a better job associating Obama with the horrors of those liberal, welfare-loving, skull-mountain-building socialists up north.

As spoken, it reverts to the positive version, and comes across as a plug for Canada (or England): “If you think Obama’s health care plan is going to be great, you should really just up and move to a country that has already implemented something like it, but better than we probably will, and succeeds with it, in addition to having less gun violence, better integrated, more diverse cities, and….” etc.

(history or origins of that catchphrase? first ironic usage? I have no idea. anybody?)