Kaloogian and the Truth - Photographic Evidence

Last July, Howard Kaloogian led a group of right wing radio talk show hosts to Iraq. Kaloogian called his visit, the "Truth Tour." The purpose of the tour was to highlight the good news that the "liberal media" was hiding from the American public. The photo at the left is one of many that Kaloogian publicized through his Move America Forward website. The caption for this photo reads:

Downtown Baghdad
We took this photo of downtown 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.

Kaloogian is running to replace convicted Republican felon Randy "Duke" Cunningham in the 50th congressional district and was so proud of this photo that he included it on his campaign website. [UPDATE - Wednesday AM: Kaloogian has apparently taken the photo down from his website.]

There is one slight problem with this picture of a peaceful, normal looking Iraqi street. The photo apparently wasn't taken in "Downtown Baghdad" or anywhere in Iraq for that matter. After Kaloogian's deception was noticed and publicized a crack crew of photo analysts literally took the picture apart and concluded that it was actually taken in Turkey.

Kaloogian's brand of truth is hard to distinguish from Cunningham's brand of lies. Maybe Kaloogian had to use a photo taken in another country because the reality of Baghdad was more like this:

I think it is time that Republicans stop pretending that they know the truth about Iraq and that the lying liberal media is keeping it from being told.

The truth is that people like Kaloogian have been working overtime to make sure that the Bush Administration lies about Iraq are constantly repeated over and over again.

Kaloogian can't handle the truth and doesn't think you should hear it.

UPDATE - Wednesday: TPM has more and even more on Kaloogian's elastic sense of the "truth".

UPDATE 2: More Kaloogian "Truth Tour" photos show up in campaign advertising. The General helps out. Odd, how much Baghdad looks like San Bernardino.