GRRR-EENFIELD

I expect to see something about Jeff Greenfield's segment just now from The Situation Room on Media Matters tonight.

In one of those all-too-common edit pieces about how Democrats have, for the past 40-some years, been seen as weaker on national security than Republicans, Greenfield described the usual stuff -- Dems won the 64 election on national security, 'Nam split them, Carter weak, Reagan strong, Cold war end, Clinton win, yadda yadda -- until finally arriving at the present. In doing so, he commits the same offense I faulted Wolf Blitzer for last week, only worse:

GREENFIELD: ...Now, Democrats believe they can use the bungled federal response to Katrina, the Dubai ports deal and the difficulties in Iraq to reclaim the security issue on competence grounds. Republicans, unsurprisingly, have a different notion, that they can continue to paint the Democratic opposition as soft on terror. Here, for instance, is how the President described the Democrats' rejections to warrantless wiretaps.

PRESIDENT BUSH (video): They ought to take their message to the people, and say "vote for me, I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program." (end clip)

Yes, he quickly snuck the word "warrantless" in there before the clip, but immediately after the clip would have been a good time to address the charge made by the President on some, or any sort of contextual grounds. But instead...

GREENFIELD: It is a measure of just how much the Democrats have been hurt by the security issue that, at a time when the President's approval ratings are low and polls say voters would prefer that Democrats control the Congress, they are looking to define themselves on the security issue more than seven months before the midterms, apparently believing that if voters don't trust them on the security issue, the others wont matter much. Wolf?

Look, I know the main point of Greenfield's segment was to describe the political posturing by the two parties on national security. But there's spin, and then there are outright lies about your opponents' position, and passing along these blatant mischaracterizations uncritically is beneath the mission of the news media.

SHORTER BUSH AT FREEDOM HOUSE

LOUD NOISES!!!

Basically the same stuff he's said for three years, only louder.

Someone asks a question. He stammers around aimlessly for around 2 minutes, then find something to yell about.

"You've been waving, yelling, stomping your feet. It's a free society! That's what happens! Yes?"

"Hello Mr President, I am an Iraqi citizen and an Iraqi mother..."

Uh oh.

WRONG CITY, WRONG COUNTRY... WRONG CONTINENT

Now this was an amusing story to wake up to.

Howard Kaloogian, conservative Republican Congressional candidate to replace convicted felon Duke Cunningham, puts up a picture of a busy urban street on his bio page, claiming that it's of a street in Baghdad, taken during a recent trip to Iraq which he took.



The point of the picture, as you can guess, is to demonstrate how things in Baghdad/Iraq are much better than the LIBRULZ in the media are telling us.

And he has a point.

Er, he would have a point... if the picture was really of Baghdad.

People who have analyzed the photo noticed that much of it was rather fishy. Lots of writing not in Arabic, but instead in Turkish (including the "C with a squiggly line under it"). Western tourists in western garb (notably the girl in the tanktop on the left), and western billboard ads like the Oakley Sunglasses ad on the right. Most of this stuff has led those who've seen the photo to believe that it's from Turkey, specificially Istanbul.

...AND WHADDYA KNOW? The link goes to a picture of the very same street, in Bakirkoy, a suburb of Istanbul.

If the Bushatarians want to convince me that the media is misrepresenting the state of things in Iraq, this wasn't the best way to start.

Mmmmmm, nothing like a shriiiiiil UCSB alum. (:

Andy "Labor Day" Card has resigned as White House Chief of Staff.

Card said this about his replacement, current OMB head Joshua Bolten:

Mr Card on Tuesday lauded the president as "good man" who has done "great things", but said: "It is a different season, and Josh Bolten is the right man for that season."

Translation: I liked this job a whole lot more when the guy was at 80%.

And what of Bolten? Well, since he took over at OMB...