Last week, you couldn't turn on a 24-hour news channel or go to most political web sites without reading or hearing criticism about John McCain's anti-Barack Obama ad that included images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Some Republican strategists were even wringing their hands, saying it was a complete bone-headed mistake by the McCain campaign.

Frivolous. Unpresidential. Unbecoming. Stupid. Those were among the kinder words used.

Where have we heard this type of thing before? Why that would be the weekend of Feb. 29.

On Feb. 29, Hillary Clinton began airing her now infamous 3 a.m. ad. Pundits quickly began blaring that Clinton was saying if voters pick Obama that their children would die in their beds. Scare mongering, one Obama friendly media outlet proclaimed.

"That 'be afraid' strategy is so 2002. It's the mindset that got us into the Iraq war in the first place," wrote AMERICAblog's liberal Joe Sudbay. Conservative Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quartersgloats: "I'd call this the last act of a desperate woman."

On MSNBC, Jonah Goldberg declared that Obama would win Texas and Ohio because, "I don`t think that sort of pitch works certainly not with the Democratic electorate."

Except Clinton won the popular vote in Texas and Ohio.

And immediately, the pundits credited the 3 a.m. ad. That's because exit polls showed the 3 a.m. ad worked despite what the pundits had predicted.

It's a long way until Nov. 4. And the "celebrity" of Obama ad may long be forgotten by then. It may have been a colossal mistake by the McCain campaign.

But just because the pundits declare it was doesn't make it so. After all, polls show the race tightening in the wake of the "celebrity" ad.