TalkingPointsMemo has a funny political theater gotcha I’d like to share.
This guy who is running for Duke Cunningham’s congressional spot in California put up this picture of “Bhagdad” from his recent trip there as a way of illustrating that the media is over-selling the negatives like, say, civil war and not talking about all the groovy good stuff that is going on over there. He offers this picture -> as evidence.
Except that isn’t Bhagdad. It is a suburb of Istanbul, Turkey called Bakirkoy. TPM’s got a picture of the same intersection from a different angle with arrows and everything.
My only experience in Turkey was spending a few hours in the Airport in Instanbul. Stuff I noticed a) the airport was one of the nicest airports I’ve ever been in, every high end luxury brand imaginable was represented, immaculately clean and well maintained b) the security was incredibly diligent and professional. As a transferring passenger they had you go down onto the tarmac where they opened up your checked baggage and asked you pointed questions Israeli style before they loaded the next plane. Very impressive stuff, handled discretely and seriously; made the TSA look like your local mini-mall security staff.