When scandals are nipping at your ankles, and the press is at your door asking questions about your over-billing the government for fuel shipments and meals for U.S. troops, accepting kickbacks from Kuwaiti subcontractors and generally profiting from war and occupation of foreign countries.... what do you do?

If your name is Halliburton you go on a media offensive, with a big ad campaign called "Halliburton, Proud to Serve Our Troops."

I have not seen the ads (I am on a strict "no television diet" these days). But the press descriptions are laughable and despicable at the same time.

The ad opens with Halliburton CEO David Lesar saying: "You've heard a lot of Halliburton lately. Criticism is OK. We can take it. Criticism is not a failure."

Then, amid shots of smiling soldiers being served up meals and camels crossing the desert in front of burning oil wells, he assures viewers: "Our employees are doing a great job. We're feeding the soldiers. We're rebuilding Iraq."

In one shot, a man in desert camouflage holds a phone, his lip trembling as he listens to good news from home. He shouts: "It's a girl."

In the ad Lesar tries to counter criticism that it owes its billions in profits to its political connections, saying, "We're serving our troops because of what we know, not who we know." The ad closes with the CEO asking, "Will things go wrong? Sure they will. It's a war zone. But when they do we'll fix it. We always have -- for 60 years for both political parties."

This ads comes as Democratic strategists targeting former Halliburton CEO and Vice President Dick Cheney as the "sinister operator behind the curtain of the Bush administration," (in the words of today's Boston Globe).

Me thinks they doth protest too much.