Friday, March 31, 2006

Baghdad is calm and peaceful and the GOP supports limited government.

Baghdad "is much more calm and stable than what many believe it to be" said the website of a Republican seeking election to Congress. And to prove it his site showed a picture of a peaceful, quiet neighbourhood. Only problem was the neighbourhood was part of Istanbul, Turkey. But the candidate, Howard Kaloogian, when the "error" was caught says nothing sinister was going on. It was just a mistake. Photos had become mixed up from his trip. "They used a picture that was wrong. There's nothing sinister about it," he said.

The original photo was a close up of the neighbourhood, close enough that people could see the signs were not in Arabic which is how critics of the candidate exposed the photo. The "error" has been corrected. Except the new photo, linked to above, is a very distant photo of Baghdad taken from a high vantage point --- no doubt a hotel safely inside the a ring of military protection. The original, but false, photo indicated that Kaloogian was actually in the calm, peaceful neighbourhoods. The other photo indicates he probably got no where close to them. If they were so calm and peaceful you have to wonder why that was?

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