July 17, 2006--Hide the Dead

Again there is controversy swirling about a political ad. This one is about an advertisement that is being shown on the Web site of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The part the Republicans are objecting to shows rows of flag draped coffins of soldiers who have been killed in Iraq. This image is one of a number in the ad that has as its tag line, “Things have taken a turn for the worse.” Other images are of Katrina victims outside the Superdome and signs showing gas prices of $3.25 a gallon. (See NY Times report about this linked below.)

It seems to me a fair enough political representation. It hardly compares with the infamous ad run by Lyndon Johnson against Barry Goldwater, attacking Goldwater’s alleged warmongering—it included images of a very young girl holding a daisy while an atomic bomb was exploding in the background. Or the ad the Republicans ran against Michael Dukakis; this one showing an image of a very black convicted murderer, Willie Horton, who Dukakis as governor of Massachusetts, it claimed, released from prison. Or one Democrats objected to two years ago when our current president authorized an ad in support of he reelection campaign that showed firefighters carrying a body from the 9/11 wreckage. This later one attempting to remind voters of Bush’s leadership during that horrific time. And of course there were the Swift Boat ads attacking John Kerry’s credibility.

In my contrarian view, I am OK with all of these ads, including the current one under attack—

Goldwater was a shoot-from-the-hip personality and probably would have been as much of a danger to the world as George Bush has turned out to be. Dukakis was a wimp—recall his pathetic response in the debate when someone asked him how he would feel and act if his wife were raped and murdered (Horton’s crime). After pausing for what seemed like 20 minutes, he said, “I’d have to think about it for awhile.” And of course we know about Bush and Kerry.

The Republicans’ objection to the current ad raises another issue—why the Bush administration is so loath to have any images at all, not just in ads but in the media as well, of any coffins, any funerals. If these men and women have made the supreme sacrifice defending freedom and democracy why do we hide their final moments from public view? I know that the Bush people don’t want to try to out-Clinton Clinton who was frequently shown publicly comforting grieving families, claiming that Bush meets regularly, but in private, with the families. That’s fine, but what about the rest of us who perhaps also want to honor those who have fallen? Why are they kept hidden from us as if we should be ashamed of them and what they experienced?

Of course the administration has this policy because they do not want us to become too emotional about the consequences of their policies and maybe, as a result, join the opposition to the war.

But then again, maybe they are the ones who might be feeling ashamed of their own policy and its failures and don’t want to be reminded of its human toll.