pants on fire

Lovely Nicole at Crooks and Liars points us to two recent high-profile gaffes over in Pajamas Media Land.  Mmmmmm.  Crow.  It's what's for dinner.

First up, we have this little bit of ham-handed bargain basement pseudo-Drudgery (viva Carpetbagger!): 

Conservatives shoot and miss with Kerry pic

Posted 3:23 pm | Printer Friendly | Spotlight

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kerry
I’ll spare you the litany of links, but several of the right’s major blogs yesterday were all aflutter over a picture of John Kerry, in Iraq a couple of weeks ago, apparently sitting alone at a mess hall. The picture, as the story went, proves that Kerry’s “botched joke” has caused lingering resentment among men and women in uniform. If the troops respected Kerry, he wouldn’t have been sitting by himself at the breakfast shown in the photo.

The photo, and the accompanying narrative about how the troops avoided Kerry, made the rounds by way of far-right radio-host Scott Hennen, who claims the “priceless story” was sent by “a friend of mine serving in Iraq.” (If Hennen’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he has an interesting history with the White House.)

He then sends us over to Justin Rood, who lowers the boom on this base canard:

At Hennen's site, commenter "Anthony" noted that the picture's embedded data, just a right-click away, shows the picture was taken on January 9, 2006 -- several months before Kerry botched his joke:

News accounts at the time put Kerry in England around that time -- which might explain the giant Union Jack hanging on the far wall.

Ohhhhhhh, it burns!  It buuurrrrrns!!

I'm sure that Michelle MalKKKin will be along any minute to decry this gross distortion of photographic evidence which clearly points to bias in, uh, what?  I'm sorry, did you just say she was one of the first Pajamas Meatheads out of the gate with this story?  But what about her fierce determination to arrive at the truth at any cost and her sterling record as a reliable citizen journalist?  She would never distort the facts to push an agenda, would she?  No, indeed, her motives are as pure as driven slush.  Just as spotless as her record of accuracy.  Histrionic little fishwife.

But back to Carpetbagger for more Rightard Follies! 

National Review’s Cliff May published this comment today from an unnamed Marine in Iraq.

[M]orale among our guys is very high. They not only believe that they are winning, but that they are winning decisively. They are stunned and dismayed by what they see in the American press, whom they almost universally view as against them. The embedded reporters are despised and distrusted. They are inflicting casualties at a rate of 20-1 and then see shit like “Are we losing in Iraq” on TV and the print media. For the most part, they are satisfied with their equipment, food and leadership. Bottom line though, and they all say this, is that there are not enough guys there to drive the final stake through the heart of the insurgency, primarily because there aren’t enough troops in-theater to shut down the borders with Iran and Syria.

In other words, here’s a Marine who, coincidentally, is repeating the exact talking points approved by the White House and supporters of the war. Sure, the Marine’s reported perspective seems completely at odds with everything we know about the crisis — indeed, it even conflicts with some of the president’s own concessions last week — but the National Review was fortunate enough to hear from a soldier willing to tell the magazine what Cliff May wanted to hear.

Except, there’s a catch. The nearly identical text from May’s NR post was part of a widely disseminated email from over a year ago. Worse, there were slight deviations in the original text in 2005, which made it difficult to confirm its authenticity.

As Justin Rood put it, “Despite a civil war and mounting body counts on all sides, the National Review folks can still find good news coming out of Iraq. Too bad it’s over a year old and of questionable provenance.”

Oops.

Lordy mercy.  It's like they're not even trying anymore. 

UPDATE: It appears the debate is still raging about where and when this Kerry photo was taken and we may have to fall back on the Judy Miller defense, here.  (All together now, pinch your nose and whine, "When your sources are wrong, you are wrong, waaaaaaaaah!")

The real story here, of course, is the Reich Wing's gnashing and wailing and clutching at straws and taking their cues right out of the cafeteria scene in "Mean Girls".  "Ooooh, look, Kerry's sitting all by himself!  Nobody likes him!  He must be stinky!"  Nice to know that MalKKKin and cohorts are bringing us their usual brand of enlightened discourse.

But, here, in the spirit of fair play, I bring you a comparable image of Bush spending the day with the troops:

 bush with the troops