THE MARKETING OF JOHN MCCAIN

    This past week Senator John McCain, presidential
candidate, former prisoner of war hero, not his choice, and a current
prisoner of Mr. Bush’s war in Iraq, so his choice, made some
interesting remarks about safety in Baghdad.  It seems, the
senator feels that the American media is reporting only the bad news
and on point, he claimed that there were many parts of Baghdad in which
an American could walk in safety.  So this weekend, when he made a
surprise visit to the green zone in Iraq, and held a Q&A with
reporters, he mentioned he had done that very thing, gone to a local
market and bartered and mixed with the locals.

    As a presidential candidate, Mr. McCain may just be
our guy, emulating one of our faux news credos; “Complete sentences are
acceptable in lieu of complete truths”, and we are impressed that he
forgot to mention, shall we say, his shopping accessories.  Those
included 100 armed guards (someone had to be in charge of the coupons),
3 Black hawk helicopters, 2 Apache gun ships (someone’s got to haul the
groceries), a bullet proof vest for the senator and, we believe, a
Haliburton prototype armored shopping cart.  Just imagine a future
when, in a democratized Iraq, American shoppers need only 50 armed
guards and 2 or 3 protective aircraft.  Like Mr. McCain, we can
dream.