Television ads have been used to sell everything from toothpaste to burgers. And while the public sneers at them, there's little doubt that they work.

But this year we're seeing an advertising first.

TV ads are being used to promote the war in Iraq.

A series of emotionally charged ads have been running on Fox News and CNN, using wounded Iraq War veterans and the families of soldiers killed in action. The goal: to prolong the war.

In one, a veteran says he re-enlisted after 9/11 because "he didn't want his son to see what he saw" and because terrorists "won't stay in Iraq." In another, a widow says her children will remember their father because he protected them from harm. Giving up now, she says, would be a waste.

The $15 million ad campaign is funded by Freedom's Watch, a political marketing group co-founded by Ari Fleischer, press secretary in President Bush's first term.

Concerns over political advertising are nothing new. The Swift Boat ads are often credited with helping Bush win the 2004 presidential election by discrediting John Kerry's service in Vietnam.

Still, an ad in favor of war raises the stakes. This isn't Coke vs. Pepsi, but the issue has been reduced to that level of consumerism.

It makes you long for the days of Clara Peller, the feisty senior in the Wendy's ad who demanded: "Where's the beef?" Maybe if Clara had marched up to the White House and asked "Where are the WMD's?" she'd have saved us all a lot of sorrow.