Apparently this dude Howard Kaloogian is running for office in San Diego. He’s a Republican, and part of his deal is “Iraq is really quite calm and fine, but the Evil Liberal Media try to make it look bad!” He apparently recently traveled to Baghdad, and he put on his website what he claimed was a picture of downtown Baghdad looking peaceful and calm. “We took this photo of dowtown Baghdad while we were in Iraq. Iraq (including Baghdad) is much more calm and stable than what many people believe it to be. But, each day the news media finds any violence occurring in the country and screams and shouts about it – in part because many journalists are opposed to the U.S. effort to fight terrorism.”
Except there was no arabic script anywhere in the picture. There were signs in Turkish, in Roman characters. And there was at least one woman dressed in a way which would be unremarkable in many countries (a pink tank top) but which would get you arrested for indecency in Baghdad.
Pretty soon the liberal quadrant of the blogodrome had consulted with friends in Baghdad, who had laughed at the idea that any part of Baghdad could look that pleasant and calm — and they even tracked down a photograph by a Turkish photographer which depicted that exact corner — of Istanbul.
Lies and the lying liars…Â or maybe this is just “truthiness.”
MetaFilter link with lots of links elsewhere to the details.
I wonder if this guy had much of a chance to begin with, or is just some random yahoo whose only claim to fame is a transparent lie? It’s fun to point and laugh and appreciate the blogodrome’s exposure of the lie, but the guy’s just a candidate. It’s not like there’s a shortage of falsehoods from members of the actual administration to deal with.