This photo, published in Newsweek this week (accompanying this story), pissed me off.

This is Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman in Iraq late last month, recreating John McCain’s “nonchalant” stroll to a Baghdad market, which is supposed to show us how things in Iraq are improving.

Note helmet, flak jacket and phalanx of soldiers surrounding the good senator.

Lieberman, of course, remains one of the foremost cheerleaders for this war, and in fact recently suggested that U.S. forces need to launch a “strike… over the border into Iran.”

But if you want to impress the American public with how well things are going with our Excellent Mideast Adventure, take off the helmet. Take off the flak jacket. Keep the armed military escort if you like, but note that the average Iraqi, like the guy selling Lieberman some shades in this photo, have neither the body armor nor the escort.

Until our war-loving leaders are willing to go to the Baghdad market as unprotected as the average Iraqi, spare us the platitudes and reassurances. They aren’t reassuring at all. And frankly, Lieberman makes Michael Dukakis look like Audie Murphy.