by Evie Stone

The McCain campaign has released a new anti-Obama ad called "Celeb":

Offshore drilling has been at the center of the back-and-forth between the campaigns for weeks, but "he'll raise taxes on electricity" is new. The press release that came with the ad backs that claim with a Texas newspaper interview in which Obama said "what we ought to tax is dirty energy, like coal and, to a lesser extent, natural gas." The Obama campaign says the candidate was talking about a cap-and-trade plan.

In a conference call with reporters, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis called Celeb "the most entertaining thing I've seen on TV." (Apparently he didn't catch the "MILF Island" episode of 30 Rock.)

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor's response:

On a day when major news organizations across the country are taking Senator McCain to task for a steady stream of false, negative attacks, his campaign has launched yet another. Or, as some might say, 'Oops! He did it again.'

Hilarious Britney references aside, this is the third negative ad from McCain in the past two weeks — and as we wrote this morning, he's being taken to task by the press for claiming the high road and then hitting low. But as the NYT's Jim Rutenberg wisely points out, these hit jobs are a great investment for the cash-strapped McCain campaign because they get so much free publicity from the media feeding frenzy. You know, the same frenzy we're contributing to right now...