“When you think of John McCain, think of me, George W. Bush. Think of this face. When you’re in the voting booth, before you vote…….. picture… this… face.” Too funny!

Take away the “D” and “R” tags and McCain might have a shot. But the war is too unpopular, the economy is too in the tank, and both McCain and Bush seem to have the exact same remedy for every American problem: Stay the course.

Republicans have a God-given gift for getting people to vote on water cooler issues above their own interests at home. And no doubt this fall they’ll try harder than ever to get people to vote for the candidate who’s the best bowler, or the most fun at the bar, or who wears their flag pin (made in China) most often. But considering the fact that next to nothing is going well in the United States of America these days, you have to believe that this will finally be the election where we all take a good honest look at our own lives, and the lives of our children, rather than turning our democracy– again– into a popularity contest. Otherwise, four years from now, we may very well have another 30,000 Americans killed our wounded overseas, another 10 million people without health care, an economy still suffering from neglect, and a President who has no clue what to do about any of it but a great sense of humor and a lot of flag pins.

To borrow a brilliant line from Philly writer John Baer’s column this morning: We might cling to religion and guns. I hope we don’t cling to stupidity.

It’s a picture composed with the faces of the 4,000 U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq (minus a few unavailable photos). My friend wrote me to say that it was an unfair cheap shot, and that it’s unproductive for war opponents to express their disagreement by implying that Bush and McCain are laughing while soldiers are dying.

Here was my response:

…the fact that the mosaic is seen as a cheap shot is telling, in and of itself.  A lot of commanders would be proud and honored to see a mosaic of their fallen soldiers made into artwork like this. Think of what a mosaic of Patton and his soldiers would say.  Or Lincoln and his army.  Every general who sends his troops into battle should be able to look them in the face.  The fact that Bush and McCain can’t or that a photo like this is seen as a slight against them speaks volumes.

My friend wrote back to say that regardless, the only people who would benefit from the mosaic were people who already agreed with the creator.  Everyone else would be further polarized by it, especially those who support the war.  He went on to say that Barack Obama’s speech last week raised the bar for functional political discourse, and liberals would be wise to stop limboing under it.

I sent back a polite agreement, still secretly believing that counterproductive or not, the photo was well within the bounds of acceptability.  Then a third friend, who had been observing the back and forth up to this point, weighed in with his thoughts and pretty much shut me down completely:

If I was killed rescuing someone from a terrorist, and Bush and Cheney used my picture to support a political agenda, I would be mad about it.  Likewise, I can’t imagine that every soldier pictured would have been okay with their death and picture being used as a political propaganda tool by anti-war activists.  I think it is disrespectful of the soldiers to use them like this.  They sacrificed their lives and now their picture gets used in a Huffington post?  I think it is rude.

Hard, if not impossible, to disagree with that.

“Of course, people talk with excitement of Obama.  Well, our excitement is that President Bush is at the end of his term, and the U.S. is going to get a new President, whoever that one is.”

(Full disclosure: The rest of the quote is, “For us, the most important thing is, let him be as good [a] friend of Africa as President Bush has been.”  But that part’s no fun.)