Why he uses this as his official photo is just beyond us, so we wonder what classic deceased actresses Lindsey Graham would choose for his fellow closeted politicians to buddy up with.

For reasons unknown to us, several years ago Republican Senator Lindsey Graham started inserting a small black and white photograph of Bette Davis in all official pictures released of him by his Senate office.  Just like Claire McCaskill writing all of her official correspondence in crayon, and leaving jam fingerprints all over the envelopes, we don’t know why Graham does this, or why someone doesn’t stop him.

Lord knows we love us some Bette Davis up in here, but even we don’t include her in photos of ourselves (and Sebastian actually HAS a photo of himself, age 11 or so, with Davis…but it’s not his current headshot).  So, Graham’s tribute, while appreciated as gay men, is odd to us.

We wonder what other deceased classic actresses would be used by other closeted politicians, as “buddy pics” in all of their portraits, the way Graham uses Davis.

At Sidetracks here in Boystown, there’s a video clip they run called “Dead or Alive” where shots of all these women flash across the screen, interspersed with photos of people like Whoopi Goldberg or Sigourney Weaver, and guys shout “Dead!” or “Alive!” as the case may be (except when it gets to Rosie O’Donnell, and everyone shouts “Fat!”…or Liza, when they shout, “Drunk!”).

Which actress would you pair with the following men?

(A) Mark Kirk

(B) Aaron Schock

(C) Larry Craig

(D) Trent Lott

(E) Rahm Emanuel

(F) Barack Obama

(G) Mark Foley

(H) Charlie Crist

(I) Eric Massa

Any other men you’d include?

Try and think outside the box with the actresses, but don’t be obscure for obscure’s sake.

Did Graham choose Davis for a reason — is he saying he’s Margot Channing, afraid of younger politicians usurping him…or is he really Jezebel at heart, wanting to wear red to the debutante ball, protocol be damned…did he grow up with a sister he wanted to serve rat to on a silver plate, a la Baby Jane?

Do the other guys have an obvious link to a black and white diva you think should be highlighted?

We’ll take the best ideas and make new official portraits for all these guys that we’ll match to Graham’s Davis pic, and will start running this going forward whenever we write about these closet cases.