HIGHTOWER: The Tinhorn President

EVEN BY today's big money standards, a million bucks is a lot to pay for a TV ad, but George W spared no expense in putting together an ad for his upcoming election campaign. Unfortunately, he stuck us taxpayers with the bill.

The ad has already run as "news" on all the networks, and we'll see snippets of it again and again next year when George goes campaigning. But Bush spent more than taxpayer dollars to make this ad for his personal political advancement -- he also spent the integrity of the American presidency, using our brave soldiers as his political props, then trying to lie to We The People about his shameful action.

The scene was the U.S.S. Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that was returning to San Diego from action in Bush's Iraqi war. George's political hack, Karl Rove, thought it would be a PR coup to have Bush greet the troops. But he quickly shifted from greeting troops to manipulating them. He dressed W up in a military flight suit, put him in a fighter jet, and swooshed him out to the carrier, making a dramatic, made-for-TV, tail hook landing.

What imagery... and irony! Here was America's most famous Vietnam draft dodger -- a guy who used his family connections to keep from fighting for his country -- now strutting around posing as some "Top Gun."

Caught in this crass act of politicizing the war and the troops, the White House did what it's best known for doing: It lied. Bush, they said, had to take the jet, because the carrier was too far out at sea to be reached by helicopter. This turns out to be sheer bushwa -- in fact, the carrier was so close to shore that it had to be turned around to keep the TV cameras from catching the San Diego coastline in the background as Bush landed.

Imagine Eisenhower, or Kennedy, or even Bush the Elder—all of whom were real war heroes -- resorting to such a cheesy political stunt. George W can dress up like a Top Gun, but he's nothing but a tinhorn -- and what a fine example of presidential dishonesty he's setting for young people.

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