image: Joe Pugliese. February 4, 2008 cover. TIME. Near the end of the Vietnam war, Bob Dole started wearing a bracelet in honor of an American POW in Vietnam, but never told a soul. In comparison, McCain started wearing one just before the New Hampshire primary, in the name of a young American kid killed in Iraq, and now he's flaunting it -- with the magazine's collusion -- on the cover of TIME.
... It wasn't until '96, by the way, that McCain discovered the name on Dole's bracelet was his.
What is it going to take -- both for the media, and the larger public -- not to automatically turn into sheep whenever and however anyone invokes the name of "the troops."
We see the practice here at its most callous, "The Phoenix" rising on the backs of dead young Americans and gesturally staking his presidential claim on it.
I'm interested in your thoughts on the image. Excuse me, though, while I go onto ebay and search for wrist attire.
By: Michael Shaw, Clinical Psychologist; a writer; an analyst of visual journalism and an interpreter of political images; and the curator of this project called BAGnewsNotes.
