And Piccadilly Circus is actually in Tikrit

Note to Howard Kaloogian, would-be Republican congressman from California: Spin doctoring is a fine art. In conducting it you may finesse facts, stretch the truth or cajole weird conclusions from seemingly benign subjects, but if you expect your spin to work one thing that is strictly off limits is bold-faced lies that anyone with a passing knowledge of international language, economics or geography will recognize.

Here is a screencap of Kaloogian’s website, which I won’t dignify with an actual link. Towards the bottom there are three pictures. The first is titled “Downtown Baghdad” and carries this description:

We took this photo of dowtown [sic] 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.

Ignoring the most obvious bold-faced lie, that our invasion of Iraq has anything at all to do with terrorism, let’s take a closer look at the picture.

There are some clues here as to just what kind of spin is going on. In Iraq the predominant language is Arabic. Kurdish is also spoken, but as a minority dialect. The signs in this picture are not, however, in Arabic or Kurdish. They’re in Turkish - “çarşi” means “market” and “noter” means “notary”. That’s odd, isn’t it. I wonder what the explanation could be.

Bloggers on Daily Kos have the answer, with help from a Turkish photographer named Faruk and the message board he posts on.

Look familiar? Note the red cornice on one building, the large ad with the woman’s face and the sloped blue structure in the middle of the street. This is indisputably the same intersection. But guess what. It’s not in Baghdad. Nor is it in Iraq. It’s not even in Asia. The photo is in fact of Bakirkoy, a suburb on the European side of Istanbul.

To his, er, credit, Kaloogian addressed the issue to Newsweek: "Journalists weren’t interested in our trip for nine months afterwards, and now they’re trying to find one picayunish mistake. It’s one itty-bitty picture.”

Way to make a stand against moral depravity and the American way, Howard. I hope the voters of northern San Diego County recognize you for the jackass that you are.

Tags: politics