March 30, 2006

A Peaceful Iraq… in Turkey?

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Howard Kaloogian, the California congressional candidate who“mistakenly” tried to pass off a photo of a peaceful Turkey street setting as a scene from Baghdad, has now called the blunder a “stupid” web error. Kaloogian is running to fill the space left by Randy “Duke” Cunningham, the Republican congressman who resigned amidst evidence that he accepted at least
$2.4 million in bribes.

Kaloogian has been touting the accomplishments of Operation Iraqi Freedom for some time, claiming that biased media reports have given Iraq an undeserved reputation as a violent locale. Iraq “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 the fight terrorism.” In staying with his message about the true tranquility of Iraq, Kaloogian captioned his now-infamous photo: “we took this photo in downtown Baghdad while we were in Iraq.” Oops.

But these “stupid mistakes” can no longer slip by unnoticed. Within hours, the blogosphere was pointing out the many faulty aspects in the photo, including western tourists and Roman characters, unlikely in Baghdad. The internet is changing the political landscape, as everything is now fair game for questioning.

For added kicks, check out the latest photo on Kaloogian’s site. It was taken from the upper floor of the Rashid hotel in the Green Zone on July 13, 2005—a little out of date—and one of the buildings depicted has now been completely obliterated.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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