McCain Girls Turn Out to Be a Hoax

The McCain Girls mystery has been solved. The women belting out campaign slogans for the "straight talker" in the hits, "It's Raining McCain" and "Here Comes McCain Again", are the brain children of comedy site 236.com. John McCain gave a shout out to the group on Fox News, but at that time he didn't even know who the McCain Girls were. The New York Times has the full report below. Read more about the videos at 236.com.

The McCain Girls videos, which were posted on YouTube last month with no clues about their provenance, are clearly meant to be imitations of -- or parodies of -- the "Obama Girl" videos, which themselves are parodies (right?).

While the Obama Girl looks like a pinup and sings catchy tunes, the McCain Girls could not be confused with fashion models or pop music stars. Their first video, "Raining McCain," set to the tune of "It's Raining Men," was posted on YouTube four weeks ago. A sample lyric: "In the 2008 election, the forecast calls for rain; the first time in history, it's gonna start raining McCain."

That video recorded more than 1.6 million views and earned mentions on CNN and on ABC's "Good Morning America," with people alternately mocking it and wondering who was responsible. The singers seemed intentionally bad, which led many bloggers and YouTube commenters to assume that it was meant to insult Mr. McCain. The liberal blog Eschaton put it this way: "I believe the YouTube era begins the age when it is impossible to tell parody/irony/performance art from completely sincere product."

Drum roll, please: The creators of the McCain Girls turn out to be the comedy team behind 23/6, a five-month-old Web site owned by an affiliate of IAC/InterActiveCorp that parodies the news. The site, at 236.com, uses the motto "Some of the news, most of the time."