Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) won't leave all the bamboozlement to Kaloogian?

A new elections complaints alleges (and pretty credibly) she said she had a degree she didn't; earlier one tagged her for bogus 'endorsement' by Ohio Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH).

Schmidt's response: Okay, maybe she never got the degree. But she took enough classes to get it.

The backstory here is that these elections complaints grow out of an inter-wingnut smackdown. The complainant is the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes, an outfit founded by Schmidt's past primary opponent Tom Brinkman.

God, you just can't make this stuff up.

Unless you're Howard Kaloogian, I guess.

Now a campaign website picture of Howard at Mount Ararat (where Noah docked the boat) in Armenia turns out to be a picture of Howard chillin' in front of Mount Palomar in California.

I guess it may be time to seriously ask whether "Howard Kaloogian" may actually be Tommy Flanagan, Jon Lovitz's classic 'would you believe' pathological liar character from the 1980s Saturday Night Live.

(ed.note: Okay, okay, this one's an April Fool's joke courtesy of the San Diego Union Tribune. But who could know the difference at this point?)

I'm no prude. And maybe I should be happy that social conservatives are getting more in touch with their bad selves. But when we were doing some due diligence today on congressional candidate Howard Kaloogian's 'endorsements' list (he'd already fibbed on a few), I couldn't help but notice that one of his endorsers is Gabrielle Reilly, who Kaloogian's site identifies as an "International Political Activist & Swimsuit Model."

Kaloogian's site links to this interview Reilly did with Kaloogian at her website.

I was curious to find out more. And when I clicked on the about page on her site I found this picture of Reilly lying on the ground holding her boobs with her shorts half pulled off.

I'm not sure if this was taken during their interview or not.

Here's her picture with the Norman Vincent Peale caption on her 'videos' page.

Not that I'm complaining or anything.

Perhaps Congress should be looking abroad for help on ethics reform.

Reuters: "Soccer referees in Nigeria can take bribes from clubs but should not allow them to influence their decisions on the field, a football official said on Friday."

Isn't this called the DeLay defense?

The guy who's got the most to fear from the Tony Rudy plea.

A lot of people talk about Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) being crooked or unethical. But considering the veritable lion's den of corruption, self-dealing and criminal conduct his office turns out to have been, I think the truth may turn out to be that he was something more like a paragon of virtue. It's just hard to figure out how else he could have worked day in and day out with so many of his key staffers and lieutenants being confessed felons without DeLay ever having gone over to the dark side, as his lawyers suggest.

As DeLay's lawyer Richard Cullen told a conference call of reporters today, "Tom DeLay was [not] aware of the wrongs that Mr. Rudy was committing. As long as people are telling the truth, Mr. DeLay has no fear about this investigation."

So run down the list.

Key DeLay-wired lobbyist Jack Abramoff -- convicted felon.

Michael Scanlon, former DeLay aide and spokesman -- convicted felon.

Tony Rudy, former DeLay deputy chief of staff -- convicted felon.

Ed Buckham, former DeLay Chief of Staff and pastor -- implicated in Rudy's plea, up front costs for lobby shop funded by Abramoff clients, helped funnel Russian oil-KGB money to DeLay, Inc.

Spokesman, Deputy Chief of Staff, Chief of Staff. A few aides here and a few aides there, and pretty soon you've got a whole org chart.

When you put it all in perspective and stop seeing through the distorted prism of the liberal media, you start to understand DeLay was a veritable Gandhi-with-the-virgins or the one good man in Sodom when it came to ethics.

They must be arguing she comes under "breach of the peace." US Constitution, Article 1, Section 6 ....

Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.

Now, one of the things that separates the US from a lot of other democracies is that legislators don't have broad immunity from prosecution. And that's a very good thing -- especially since there's little history of the more crass sort of police state political prosecutions in this country and thus little risk that outweighs the danger of allowing corruption to run unchecked. But, honestly, I didn't remember this passage in the constitution until TPM Reader SS sent it in. Setting aside the particulars of this case I'm curious whether there is much jurisprudence or case law on what this particular passage means.

If McKinney is guilty of battery or resisting arrest of something. My sense, from a constitutional perspective, is that the DC police should be handling it. Something doesn't feel right about the capitol police proceeding against a member of Congress in this fashion, both for substantive reasons and because of shenanigans by folks in the majority. Anyone out there have any insight on this?

Late Update: This legal analysis at Findlaw suggests that this passage does not apply to criminal infractions and is, for all intents and purposes, a dead letter.

Yet another phony Kaloogian photo?

I can see the merits of an immigration policy that lets in lots of immigrants and I can see the merits of one that lets in much fewer immigrants. But a guest worker program -- especially one that envisages large numbers of immigrants here to work on a semi-permanent basis with no prospect or ready access to a path to citizenship -- is wrong. We're not Kuwait and we're not Germany. It's bad for America to have a permanent class of residents who are here for their labor but who are permanently barred from becoming citizens. It's bad for our society. It's bad for the immigrants. And it's bad for citizens who have to compete for jobs against an inherently exploitable class of whatever amounts to 21st century coolie labor.

No surprise President Bush is big in favor of such a bad idea. Bad economics, bad civics, bad social policy.

Late Update: Nathan Newman makes a good subsidiary point. Guest worker programs come in two flavors, bad and really unbelievably bad. It's important to distinguish the two.

Here's the summary of the charges Tony Rudy pled guilty to today. Tom DeLay has a new nickname, Representative #2.

I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of Cynthia McKinney (D-GA). But an arrest warrant? This report says that Capitol Hill police plan to issue an arrest warrant for McKinney for striking a Capitol Hill police officer a couple days ago.

Now, that sounds pretty bad. And it ain't great. But my understanding of what happened provides some important context.

Members of Congress don't have to wait in line to go through the metal detectors on Capitol Hill. McKinney didn't go through the metal detector. But one of the capitol police officers didn't recognize McKinney as a member of Congress. He rushed toward her from behind and grabbed her by the arm. She in turn slugged or shoved him in the chest.

Another account suggests the police officer called for her to stop and she failed to heed the initial warnings.

I wasn't there. I haven't seen every account. But that's my understanding of what happened.

I'm really not sure McKinney is the only member of Congress who, grabbed from behind by a capitol police officer, might not have, in the heat of the moment, swung a punch or shoved. They're a proud bunch.

Again, I'm not defending it. I think McKinney is a bit of a hot-head. And she should be embarrassed by this and come in for her share of criticism. Moreover, from what I understand of the incident, the cop in question did just what he should have if he didn't know who McKinney was. But would the capitol hill police be putting out an arrest warrant for a more wired member of the body? I really don't think so.

If there's context I don't know, I'd like to learn more.

Late Update: Interesting, Justin Rood unearths a passage from a 2002 Slate profile which suggests that Capitol Hill police have a history of having a hard time remembering that McKinney is a member of Congress.

A very negative assessment from Judge Richard Posner of the 2004 intelligence reorganization and the "new bureaucracy" of a thousand under DNI John Negroponte.

Here's the charging document in the Rudy case.

Tony Rudy pleads guilty. More soon at TPMmuckraker.com.

More in this Rudy backgrounder at TPMm.

Scanlon's jilted fiance helped send Scanlon, Abramoff and presumably a slew of others to the slammer. That and more news of the day in today's Daily Muck.

Kaloogian crows to the moonbats.

The email the exposed bamboozler sent out to supporters Thursday evening ...

Friends:

Last night I wrote to you to give you a heads up on the fact that there was a growing attack on our campaign by the news media and liberal political activists.

And the good news is that despite their best efforts, their attacks are backfiring.

Here's the scoop...

Because they disagree with our support for Operation Iraqi Freedom, the liberal news media and left-wing political activists are trying to defeat us and have sunk to the petty level of attacking me because 1 photograph on my website was mislabeled. The photograph was from our "Voices of Soldiers" tour to Iraq where we went to support our troops fighting in the war against terrorism.

That 1 photograph in question was labeled "Baghdad, Iraq" when it was in fact from Istanbul, Turkey (where part of our delegation had a layover on their return home to the United States).

Once we realized the problem we took down the picture, accepted full responsibility, apologized and replaced the photograph with one properly taken of Baghdad.

Yet, like their efforts to smear President Bush with the last minute DUI story in 2000 or the bogus Dan Rather "Memogate" scandal of 2004 these attacks on my trip to Iraq are already backfiring.

In the past 24 hours my campaign website has been bombarded with our largest inflow of support in the form of campaign contributions that we have experienced the entire campaign.

I am asking that you help me continue to maintain this momentum, so I can respond to these attacks and take our message to the voters.

Please make a contribution to my campaign here:

http://www.kaloogian.com/contribute

[You can contribute any amount - $5, $50, $500, $5,000 or anywhere in between... all the way up to $6,300 per individual]

The American people have had enough of the liberal news media and their blatant smear campaigns against conservative candidates.

I want to thank you so much for standing by me and remaining committed in our campaign. We are going to achieve a great victory on April 11th and it will all be possible because of YOUR support.

With my heartfelt appreciation,

Howard Kaloogian Conservative Republican for Congress http://www.KaloogianForCongress.com

P.S. You may also mail in a contribution to support our campaign to our finance headquarters at this address:

Kaloogian For Congress P.O. Box 1863 Sacramento, CA 95812

Maybe send him some money so he can buy some genuine pictures.

This should be fun.

One of the nice things for Republicans in some of the open races this year is that they can bring in new blood, folks who aren't tainted by associations with Tom DeLay or Abramoff or whomever.

But that might not work out that well in Illinois' 6th District where Democrat Tammy Duckworth and Republican Peter Roskam are vying to replace the retiring Henry Hyde (R-IL).

Roskam used to work for DeLay. And even though his work on DeLay's staff was back in 1980s, DeLay seems to have been on hand to lend his old employee a helping hand much more recently.

Here's a clip from a January, 18 1998 piece in the Chicago Tribune ...

Word on Capitol Hill is that ideological conservative state Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Naperville) is getting behind-the-scenes help in his six-way Republican congressional primary battle from GOP House Whip Tom DeLay of Texas.

DeLay is the arch-conservative former pest-control service operator whose former profession and aggressive attacks on federal regulation of almost any type, including environmental laws, has earned him the nickname "The Exterminator."

A top aide to DeLay has been calling around to some big conservative backers suggesting they "take a look at" (i.e., send money to) Roskam, said a congressional source.

Of course, last April, as DeLay started swirling toward the court house, Roskam said he really never kept in touch. He told the Sun-Times he "not had any contact with [DeLay] essentially for 20 years."

On the other hand, five months later DeLay was co-hosting a Roskam fundraiser in DC.

So the whole thing is really sort of hard to keep track of.

Maybe someone can help me.

Okay, it seems like I really dropped the ball on my most recent Kaloogian post. But in my defense, the guy is ridiculous on so many different fronts it's just not that easy to keep up with all of them in real time.

As we mentioned this afternoon, Kaloogian's latest excuse for his Baghdad-Istanbul bamboozle is this (as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle) ...

The candidate said he hadn't recognized the error because "the military asked us to use our discretion and put things on the Internet that were nondescriptive ... (because) if we posted something that was easily identifiable, it could be a target."

Now, as an almost limitless number of TPM Readers have written in to point out, this is a rather self-defeating explanation.

Things are much calmer and safer in Baghdad than the Bush-hating press will tell you. But we can't actually show you any pictures because our military handlers told us that any place identified in a photograph in my dinky little campaign website runs a serious risk of being blown up.

Sounds like things are going great over there, doesn't it?

And however things are going in Baghdad, isn't this guy's status as a clown up to something like a moral certainty at this point?

Earlier this evening, the Associated Press ran a clarification to their story about Rep. Jim Ryun and his house purchase from the now-defunct U.S. Family Network.

"The Associated Press," they wrote, "should have credited the blog TPMmuckraker.com, which first reported the sale."

The reporting in question was by TPMmuckraker.com's Paul Kiel.

That was classy and we appreciate it.

We're in a period of often uncomfortable flux in the news business. And as the containers into which the news is poured and the structure of the industry itself both change, it's understandable that stuff like this happens. My point in flagging this yesterday was not to zing the particular reporter or news organization. I'm not in this business to rack up 'as first reported by' lines. But reporters and news outlets that do solid, enterprise journalism should be credited for their work. And we shouldn't lose sight of that even as the formats we write in change.

Okay, I know we can't talk about this bozo Howard Kaloogian forever. But this is just too good to pass up.

The San Francisco Chronicle has a piece about about Kaloogian's bamboozle. And it includes his latest excuse ...

The candidate said he hadn't recognized the error because "the military asked us to use our discretion and put things on the Internet that were nondescriptive ... (because) if we posted something that was easily identifiable, it could be a target."

In other words, it's the Army's fault. Or maybe the Marines. Who knows?

Maybe someone can help me even with the logic here. The military told us to use non-descriptive stuff. So we ended up putting up a picture from Istanbul. Believe me, I'm not trying to be dense. But I'm not even sure this new bamboozlement stands up on its own terms. I guess maybe they're saying that they looked for something so generic and non-descript that they didn't even recognize it. And that led them to posting a picture from a different country. Sounds like exactly the kind of doofus you want in Congress, right?

And, so if Kaloogian is walking down the street in Baghdad and snaps a few pics, the U.S. military doesn't want those man-on-the-street photos on the web because terrorists might use them for targeting? I really doubt insurgents are using this joker's website for targeting information.

They might not want him posting pictures of military installations and secure zones -- which seem to be the only places Kaloogian set foot. That makes sense. But obviously that's completely different from on the street snaps.

Let's face it. This guy's awash in a sea of his own bamboozles. He's fallen and he can't get up.

Sigh. When will it end. California GOPer accuses Kaloogian of new 'endorsement' bamboozle.

Ahh, a thing of beauty. Wikipedia says there's a new noun: 'Kaloogian.' It describes "the use of a false or out-of-context image in order to advance an idea."

Murray Waas has another great piece in National Journal. This lengthy piece details how Karl Rove told the people at the White House that President Bush's 2004 reelection prospects would be severely damaged if the truth came out about what he knew about the bogus uranium story -- particularly, the fact that he'd personally been warned that the Niger story was probably bunk.

Here's what I can add to this story.

We saw this and the cover-up it spawned first hand. While I and reporters from CBS were working on this story through 2004 it was clear that folks on the Hill would agree to talk and then suddenly un-agree when they got the call from the White House. The White House worked doggedly at almost every turn to get the story killed or delayed beyond the election, which they of course did.

That's not all.

Various arms of the US government actually have been trying or at least been interested in trying to get to the bottom of the story. But that would require the cooperation of the Italian government. And that, of course, is not likely to be forthcoming since at least some elements in the Italian government are responsible for or participated in the scam. The problem? The Bush administration has not lifted a finger to get the Italians to cooperate. That's the hang-up. Why wouldn't the White House want the Italian government to cooperate with US law enforcement and intelligence agencies on getting to the bottom of this? Go back and read Waas's description of Rove's analysis -- the Niger case was kryptonite for the president.

The cover-up on this one is deep. Really deep. And much of it has yet to be uncovered.

Earlier in the day a number of readers wrote in to say that the Kaloogian debacle hadn't been picked up in the local San Diego Union-Tribune. That's actually not true. The UT actually did a really good run-down of what happened and explained how the sleuthing work started at Kos and then bounced from one blog to the next. They even quoted yours truly on what it all means.

More fun at Kaloogian's expense. And it's actually pretty funny.

Abramoff skybox regular joins Michael Steele's Maryland senate campaign.

Paul Kiel's got some more details about Rep. Ryun's (R-KS) sweetheart real estate deal. Short version: his answers to the AP raise even more questions. Rep. Ryun doesn't seem to want to address the fact that he apparently negotiated the deal with the now-disgraced lobbying firm Alexander Strategy Group.

So, member of Congress purchases a house from a lobbying firm, doesn't use a realtor but negotiates the deal privately. Final price about a hundred grand under market value. Sounds clean to me.

(ed.note: To the AP, guys, Paul's got some more material available to steal if you guys are still game.)

Late Update: Rep. Ryun's hometown paper, the Topeka Capital-Journal picks up the Ryun story (registration req.)

Ahhh, the wages of bamboozlement.

For the last twenty-four hours or so, Howard Kaloogian's campaign website has been in what looked to be a cyber death rattle. Now up, now down, appearing sometimes whole or with chunks missing, it was hard to know what was happening with the Baghdad-bamboozling site.

Now they've got this announcement up on the front page ...

We Appologize for the inconvience, but we are currently experiencing Extremly High bandwidth on this server, preventing the site from functioning at its full potental. Be assured we are working as fast as possible to get the site running at full force. You may however still view our CONTRIBUTIONS.

It's tough when you become a national laughing stock for trying to fool people into thinking up is down and don't even bother to come up with good phony evidence.

Life's hard.

We've got the disclosure filings on Howard Kaloogian's astroturf outfit 'Move America Forward.'

Jill Carroll's release: These stories so often end in such darkness and brutality, it's really nice to see this one end differently. Good for her; good for her family. Just good.

Rep. Ryun gets a great deal on a house. And the AP gets a great deal on a story. All that and more in today's Daily Muck.

Having very prominently complained just last night that a slew of mainstream media outlets were ripping off stories that Paul Kiel and Justin Rood broke at TPMmuckraker.com, I want to thank the Times' John Broder for prominently and graciously crediting our role in yesterday's Howard Kaloogian flameout. But let me practice what I preach. We were in the mix almost from the beginning. And I think we helped advance the story a lot by dissecting various obvious problems with the photograph, doing one of the first interviews with Kaloogian and others, etc. But the unraveling didn't begin with us.

To the best of my knowledge it got rolling with this post by diarist 'anthonyLA' at Kos. And it was another Kos diarist, 'jem6x', who finally put the whole matter to rest by uncovering the other picture of the street corner outside Istanbul.

This is also a good opportunity to make a point related to my post yesterday about attribution. Often, it's not that easy to disentangle or dissect just how a story got started on the web. Often they start 'virally', as was the case here. My point in flagging this issue yesterday wasn't to ding other reporters for the occasional mistake. 'Getting credit' has never mattered much to me at TPM. And 'credit' is often very complicated in how stories get started on the web in any case. But the two reporters I hired at TPMmuckraker.com are doing a lot of wholly original reporting -- stories that are theirs from the ground up, and ones a lot of work goes into. My point in pressing this issue last night wasn't to hassle the occasional oversight or misunderstanding, both of which happen with some frequency between conventional news outlets. My point is to call out the assumption among too many reporters that original reporting on the web amounts to free pickings, a separate class of journalism they can snag and call their own. That's gotta stop.

By the way, for any of you who've spent time in Baghdad in the last few years. Do you recognize the part of the city where the picture in the post below was taken? Curious what section of the city it's in.

Late Update: I figured the new picture was probably taken from the Green Zone and I started looked through Google Maps late last night to try to nail it down, but couldn't figure out and went to sleep. A poster a Booman Tribune was a bit more resourceful and nailed it down.

Boy, we've really got a live one on the line with this Kaloogian joker.

So let's review. Over the course of the last forty-eight hours we learned that the photo Kaloogian posted of Baghdad -- as evidence of how peaceful things are in Iraq -- was actually a picture taken outside Istanbul. The picture was evidence, Kaloogian claimed, of how the pro-terror press is misleading the American public about how well things are going in Iraq. Called on his error, he told TPMmuckraker.com that it was just a simple mistake: "You're being really picky on this stuff. It's not that big a deal. It was a mistake. I'm sorry."

So fair enough. Now all he has to do is go back and get one of peaceful pictures from Baghdad.

So this is what he came up with. And just to be clear, no, I'm not joking. This is his new picture.

See the contented, optimistic look on people's faces? The signs of quickening commerce?

Okay, enough snark. I'm actually shocked that this is the best this guy could do. Look, Baghdad is a vast city. There are people falling in love there. Children being born. The quiet desperation of existence. No one is saying or believes that there's black smoke or an ambulance in every street scene. Certainly you can find some parts of the city where you can take photos and things look relatively normal.

What this joke of a picture -- given what it's supposed to demonstrate -- tells me is that Kaloogian's bogus fact-finding mission probably didn't get outside the heavily fortified safe zones guarded by the US military. And that's not surprising since even a lot reporters don't venture beyond those areas much any more.

And the reason why isn't that hard to fathom. Iraq isn't a safe place for Westerners right now. It's not a particularly safe place for Iraqis either. But that's a separate issue. I think Howard Kaloogian knows that. And basically, like he was in a lot of his other recent gambits, he's just trying to bamboozle and con people.

Was the Istanbul photo just an innocent accident? Maybe. But a campaign website isn't like the FEC disclosure database. It's a fairly small site. Given how big an issue this is for him I figure he'd probably be able to eyeball the part that flags his signature issue and accuses the media of supporting terrorism.

There are a lot of people dying in Iraq right now. There are a lot of American soldiers doing their best to do their job in Iraq and come back home alive. Kaloogian's cheap tricks suggest he doesn't care much about either. He just cheapens what everyone over there is going through.

Okay, enough is enough.

I've been blogging for almost five and a half years. But being an 'editor' of another blog -- TPMmuckraker.com -- has given me a new perspective on the form and its relationship to the mainstream media. Specifically, it's opened my eyes to just how routinely mainstream media outlets rip off stories that are originally reported on blogs.

We're not the only ones. Rawstory.com has had related problems. But let me tell you our story.

Last week, over a three or four day period, there were four instances in which a mainstream media outlet took a story or scoop we (and by this I mean the two reporters who put out TPMmuckraker.com, Paul Kiel and Justin Rood) had first published and ran it as their own without crediting or mentioning that TPMmuckraker.com had originally broken the story.

Writing up or following up on a story and not crediting the news organiztion that first reported it is not a journalistic felony. It's more on the order of a misdemeanor or moving violation. But it is a breach. And mainstream news outlets, a few of which I've actually written for, don't seem to think it applies to blogs that are doing original reporting.

This evening I noticed that a writer for the Associated Press, Sam Hananel, wrote a story on Rep. Jim Ryun's (R-KS) questionable real estate purchase from the now-defunct U.S. Family Network, the nonprofit controlled by DeLay political advisor Ed Buckham and funded by clients of Jack Abramoff.

This is Paul Kiel's story. He's one of the two reporters for TPMmuckraker.com. He wrote about the purchase first late Monday afternoon. He followed up late Tuesday afternoon with another piece, based on interviews with DC area real estate appraisers, which suggested that Ryun got the house for as much as $100,000 less than its market valuation.

As the editor of the site I can tell you that the piece began with a tip. Kiel then reported the story. It was his story.

Yet, in Hananel's piece there is no mention of Kiel's work. Hananel's piece reads as though he was the first reporter to pick up the story when in fact his story never would have been written unless Kiel had reported the story and come up with most of the key facts two days earlier.

Now, I've worked in the mainstream media. And not infrequently reporters will think they deserved a credit when they don't get one. It happens. As long as it's not particularly egregious, it often goes unmentioned. In some cases the editor from the original publication will put in a call expressing his or her displeasure. (I did this in the four other cases I mentioned above.) I don't know Mr. Hananel. And I wouldn't be making a point of this were it not for the fact that ripping off original reporting from blogs is clearly routine.

The fact that Kiel does his reporting and writing on a site that calls itself a 'blog' and orders its stories in reverse chronological order does not give Mr. Hananel the right to rip off Kiel's work or to run a story first reported by another journalist without crediting that journalist for their work.

Conventional news outlets frequently chide blogs for not doing any original reporting but rather feeding off the original reporting of the mainstream media. In many cases, the criticism is merited. But if that is the criticism it behooves every mainstream media outlet to enforce their own standing policies and not allow reporters to rip off blog writers who are doing original reporting.

Oh and there's more.

Looks like Kaloogian's partner at "Moving America Forward" thought the 'Truth Tour' trip to Iraq to report on all the good news would also be a good opportunity to sign a few lucrative contracts.

The party affiliation that dare not speak its name: AP reports out Abramoff sentence without ever mentioning that Abramoff is a Republican. Actually, without ever using the word 'Republican' in the story. At least not in this version at the ABC website.

It's like the president wants a regime change mulligan. He says the violence in Iraq is all Saddam Hussein's fault.

Howard Kaloogian's long history of Iraq bamboozlement. The phony photo is only the latest.

And there's more!

Kaloogian speaks: "Everybody in the group, we all shared pictures. I'm sorry, I don't know who took it ... You're being really picky on this stuff. It's not that big a deal. It was a mistake. I'm sorry."

Whiny Scalia plays race card over pro-torture comments.

Candidate Howard Kaloogian no longer speaking to the press about "Baghdad" bamboozle.

Meta-Bamboozlement: Kaloogian defended the picture as genuine before he pooh-poohed it as fake. Was for it before he was against it, you might say.

Abramoff gets five years ten months for SunCruz fraud.

The Latest: Kaloogian blames the "Baghdad" picture bamboozlement on the webmaster.

Busted!

There are some moments when collaborative journalism really does shine.

A commenter at Kos -- jem6x -- seems to have found the conclusive evidence that Howard Kaloogian's photograph of "Baghdad" is in a suburb of Istanbul.

Late Update: Okay, put a fork in him. This guy's done. Below I've taken the image of peaceful "Baghdad" which candidate Kaloogian posted on his website and said he himself took. Below that I added the image of the Istanbul suburb unearthed by the commenter on Kos's site. (The image is of the Istanbul suburb of Bakirkoy and comes originally from this site.)

As I've tried to note here with these arrows, this is at least a four point match.

Late Update: Howard Kaloogian's Baghdad bamboozlement should probably generate some renewed traffic to Howardisaliar.com.

Wow. This is sad, pathetic, hilarious and altogether true to form. Hugh Hewitt, whose show I used to go on to yell and get yelled at, wants courage props for broadcasting from a studio in New York City.

Some of us hang here every day. Even my dog Simon does.

Jack Abramoff gets sentenced today in the SunCruz fraud case down in Florida. We'll have updates as the story develops.

Maybe congressional candidate Howard Kaloogian's website is just being deluged by visitors trying to get a look at the picture he took of "Baghdad" on his recent sight-seeing visit. But it sure looks like his campaign has taken the page in question off the site. (Needless to say, we archived a copy.) Sure looks like this bozo was trying to pass off a picture from Turkey as one showing how great things are going in Baghdad. We shall see.

Jack Abramoff apologizes to court for bad language in one of his bad films. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.

TPM Reader JD reports in directly from Baghdad on Howard Kaloogian's website bamboozlement ...

Why is this pic definitely not of Baghdad?

As you say, the script is wrong and there are Turkish letters instead of Arabic (“NOTER” is Turkish for “Notary” by the way), including that telltale Turkish “Ç” on the yellow sign on the right.

My four Baghdad staffers tell me the cobblestones on the pedestrian walkway do not exist in Iraq, and anyway, they know every corner in Iraq in this simply is not here.

The blue metal and glass commercial structure at right does not reflect technology in the dilapidated Saddam-nurtured command economy -- “we never had this!,” as a staffer adds.

The buildings and taxi are much too nice (“maybe Baghdad in 100 years!” as one of them guffaws); the garb is all wrong; and everything is much too clean for a city greatly straining to meet basic service needs.

The pedestrians are much too relaxed; especially the couple at lower left, with the woman who would be questioned/arrested for indecency being dressed like that. (“This is impossible, to go out like that!,” as a female translator of ours relays the obvious.)

In short, they all just laughed, but wherever this is exactly they would like to make a tourism visit. So if the Congressman lets us know, they’d appreciate it. Seemingly, the Congressman relays a photograph of Turkey – perhaps that was a stop on his ill-informed trip?

Really curious how all this plays out tomorrow.

Riffing on GOP mid-term election strategy can be fun. And edifying.

Okay, in for a dime in for a dollar.

Back to this alleged photo of peaceful Baghdad taken by California congressional candidate Howard Kaloogian. (Read the post below, if you haven't already. It'll be hard to follow this post without that background.)

Like a lot readers who've written in in response to the post below and a lot of commenters on other sites, I really feel like this looks like this photograph wasn't taken in Baghdad but rather somewhere in Turkey. But as is so often the case in life, this seems like one of those cases where a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. So I've held back.

But the more I hear from readers the more I think this might actually be a photograph taken in Turkey.

This picture below is a blown up section from the upper right hand portion of the original photo on Kaloogian's website.

With the white arrows I've highlighted what appear to be cedillas under the roman 'C' and 'S' on the yellow sign.

Add in the other contextual clues and that looks very much like the Turkish alphabet. And in fact the letters 'C A R S I' (which seems to be what this sign says) make a word in Turkish, 'carsi' which means 'shopping center' or 'market.'

It really all does seem to fall into place, doesn't it?

Late Update: A commenter at Will Bunch's site points out that the "Edo" sign on the lower left (see the full size photo in the original post) appears to be that of this Turkish ice cream company. Turkish alphabet, Turkish words, Turkish fast food franchises. Eventually you've got to wonder whether this photograph might have been taken in Turkey.

Even Later Update: Now there's some Kaloogian bamboozlement humor too.

Okay, this is good for a laugh on a slow news night.

(And just to be clear, I'm a little late to this party. Will Bunch, a diarist at Kos's site and another at DU are already all over it.)

Howard Kaloogian, one of the wingers trying to replace Duke Cunningham out in San Diego, has this picture of Baghdad that he took on a recent trip to Iraq posted on his campaign website.

With the picture Kaloogian writes: "We took this photo of dowtown 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."

But is that really Baghdad? Now, I'm always a bit leery of these online mysteries. Because I've certainly never been to Baghdad. And I couldn't tell you if a street was in Baghdad or Damascus or Cairo for that matter.

But do you see any Arabic script in this photograph?

My recollection is that on major highways in Iraq the major signs have written in Arabic and also in English.

But this appears to be a city square and every street and store sign I can see is written in roman script, not Arabic. In any case, the issue is less the presence of roman script than the lack of Arabic script.

Others at the sites I mentioned above point out that the woman in pink on the lower left is a bit more provocatively dressed than you might expect in the increasingly sharia-fied Iraq. The billboard on the upper right appears to feature a likeness of some modern-day Pippi Longstocking and the other billboard down the road doesn't look quite right either.

Now, none of those latter points would make me wonder, not being familiar enough with what your average Baghdad street scene looks like. But the absence of Arabic script makes me really curious.

The one thing I really don't get is how Kaloogian could really be so stupid as to post a picture which he claims is of Baghdad and have it not really be from Baghdad. Certainly, it's possible to take a photograph in Baghdad and not have billowing black smoke and ambulances or anyone blown apart. And if you look at Kaloogian's page it seems pretty clear he did go to Iraq. That level of needless stupidity seems hard to fathom. And it's the only thing that makes me think that -- lack of Arabic script notwithstanding -- it must really be Baghdad.

So let's have at it.

What do people make of this photo?

There will be a lot more to say when all the dust settles. But one very happy result of the just-concluding Israeli election is the body blow it has dealt to the Likud. According to this Reuters report, Likud looks set to win a mere 12 seats in the next Knesset. Kadima, the new party Sharon founded just before his stroke, will probably get 30 or just over and Labor will get between 20 to 22.

It's not that the right has collapsed. Some of this is just a matter of reshuffling. Yisrael Beiteinu, a right-wing immigrant party will likely get 12-13 seats too. Still though, for a party that's dominated Israeli politics since the mid-1970s, it's a devastating result.

With Netanyahu now at the helm of this broken party, well ... it really couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

The Haaretz headline sums it up: Center-Left 62-66 seats, Right 48-51.

Late Update: Jo-Ann Mort, who unlike me knows a lot about this stuff, previews the coming coalition negotiations.

Here's an update on that fishy real estate deal between former DeLay Chief of Staff and money broker Ed Buckham and Rep. Jim Ryun (R-KS). Seems Ryun got quite a sweet deal.

Alas, clearing up some inevitable points of confusion on the Iran post.

It seems clear to me that we don't have any good or even any plausible military option to prevent the Iranians from moving forward on the nuclear program. So whether or not such an adventure would be ill-advised or not, is an academic point. The fact that we're pinned down in Iraq and at the mercy of Iranians there only makes the point more clear.

My point on latent military threats is a more general one. Maintaining some degree of strategic ambiguity about the use of force is essential in any case like this. Here though it's a limited one since it's a more or less idle threat. They must know it; hopefully we do too.

Over at TPMCafe, Jim Webb has started an interesting discussion about how the Democrats can regain the initiative on foreign policy and defense matters. He's online now...make sure to check it out.

The late Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater on John McCain's new pal Jerry Falwell, July 1981: "I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."

A few thoughts on Iran.

Occasionally, I'll sit down to write a longish think post on this or that topic. I'll write, pine, edit, mull. And then I'll become so frustrated with it, I'll just jot down the highlights which the annoying process has helped me crystalize in my mind and post those.

It's sort of a microcosm of what most writing is like.

So here goes.

An Iran with nuclear weapons would make the world a lot more complicated and dangerous for the United States. And we should do everything we reasonably can (note: key elastic phrase) to prevent it. Assuming sensible leadership on our side I think that means at least the background threat of force, if for no other reason than that no high-stakes serious diplomacy is effective without the possibility of stronger measures somewhere in the background.

But, ahh, sensible leadership. Would that it only were true.

The problem we face is that the White House and the agencies it controls have no credibility whatsoever in telling the country or the Congress the truth when it comes to just where the Iranians are in their quest for nuclear weapons. (I believe the Iranians are trying to build a nuclear weapon in spite of the statements from the administration, as much as because of them.)

A second and even more difficult problem is that past experience strongly suggests that the White House will approach this brewing confrontation not in order to settle the nuclear issue but rather using the nuclear issue as a pretext for confrontation. That of course is precisely what happened with Iraq.

Now, what does this tell us? What does it suggest as a sensible policy?

I think it tells us that we should avoid what I would term the peril of high-minded abstraction in policy-making.

Here's what I mean. When I look back on my own thinking about Iraq (in 2002) and the thinking of a lot of other sensible people, the biggest mistake was considering the issue in the abstract without taking into account who was really driving the car, i.e., who was president and who would make the key decisions.

Not that I didn't think about it on some level, of course. Most of what I wrote at the time suggested that the Bush White House would screw things up. But I considered that a secondary issue whereas in fact it was the primary issue. The fact that President Bush and his advisors wanted war and shaped their actions to achieve that goal was the issue. Everything else was secondary.

Folks like me, who thought that threatening war (and being willing to follow through on the threat) made sense, assuming a good-faith commander-in-chief at the helm, were just wasting their time and making a major miscalculation.

And that is one thing I fear in the current debate. I think a lot of people of good faith will game out the Iranian nuclear question acting on the hypothetical assumption that we have a president whose goal is to prevent a nuclearized Iran and who is acting in good faith.

That, after all, is what right-thinking, mainstream foreign policy types are supposed to do. They're not supposed entertain the possibility that the president or his advisors are dishonest in their portrayal of the entire situation or pursuing goals different from the ones they profess to be pursuing. And they're certainly not supposed to tailor their policy prescriptions to take into account that possibility. That's political. It's not policy.

But to follow that approach -- sensible under sensible circumstances -- just doesn't take into account what we've all seen in the last five years.

It's not the worst breach of the constitution DC Republicans have pulled of late. But it's actually a pretty big deal if you believe in constitutional government. The recent budget actually never passed the Congress, even though the president signed it and it's now being treated as law. Take a look.

As TPM Reader GW just pointed out to me the link above is to a column at Roll Call which is behind the subscription wall. (I try to make a point of flagging that when I link to a subscription only piece.) But you can read it here for free at the AEI website, where Ornstein is a fellow.

Late Update: You can find more on this issue in Jonathan Weisman's March 22nd piece in the Post.

The transformation is almost complete.

John McCain once called Jerry Falwell an "agent of intolerance." Now he's going to be the graduation speaker at Jerry's Liberty University.

Abramoff: "selfless patriot" scarred by early life in Beverly Hills. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.

And Muck Extra: National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman says "the NRCC does not have any standard practice for dealing with donations from convicted former lawmakers."

Bush on the ropes; Andy Card resigns.

The Hill: "Before former Rep. Randy 'Duke' Cunningham (R-Calif.) headed to prison, he prepared a small parting gift intended to help his colleagues in the upcoming election: a $2,000 check from his expiring campaign committee to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC)."

Sen. Byrd's (D-WV) Republican opponent hires Swift Boat consultants.

Another member of Congress in a fishy real estate deal?

Ralph Reed slips the noose in Texas because the statute of limitations on his probable crime has run out.

The DOD has now reissued those regulations barring uniformed members of the armed forces from participating in partisan political events -- the ones Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) and various other Republican representatives were helping to flout.

John Aravosis has the details.

Texas yanks Tom DeLay's Concealed Carry permit. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.

Yep, institutionalizing a 'guest worker' type program in the US would give us the worst of all worlds as immigration policy goes. Citizenship matters; and it should be the basis of any good immigration policy.

"The Founders Never Imagined a Bush Administration" by Joyce Appleby and Gary Hart.

Tales from the meltdown (from the Orlando Sentinel's Jim Stratton) ...

U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris slogged through another political morass Saturday when she suggested that one of her most senior advisers had fed embarrassing information to the press.

Appearing at a gun show in Orlando, Harris said that Adam Goodman, her longtime media consultant, had told the St. Petersburg Times that he and chief strategist Ed Rollins were leaving the campaign.

The story, Harris said, was wrong.

"Ed is not leaving my campaign," the Longboat Key Republican said. "Ed Rollins is very committed to my campaign."

The two-term congresswoman, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, then accused Goodman of spreading the story.

"That article basically came from Adam," Harris said, "and it was not accurate."

Asked whether Goodman was still with the campaign, she said: "He is, is, uh . . . heh . . . no comment."

Harris' remarks were surprising, because Goodman has worked with Harris for years and is considered one of her closest advisers. The candidate's words became puzzling when Harris phoned the Orlando Sentinel an hour later with a different story.

She said Goodman was still with the campaign and said "it was wrong" of her to say he leaked information.

"I shouldn't have said that," she said.

Harris could not explain the change or make clear why she had first refused to say whether Goodman was still working with her.

"I don't even know," she said. "That is so not like me."

And from yesterday's St. Petersburg Times ...

As Katherine Harris' rocky Senate campaign takes an increasingly evangelical Christian bent, her remaining top campaign staffers are preparing to jump ship.

Colleagues say Harris' closest confidante lately appears to be spiritual adviser Dale Burroughs, founder of the Biblical Heritage Institute in Bradenton.

"Dr. Dale," as she is known among campaign staffers, describes herself as a licensed clinical pastoral counselor who counsels in behavior temperament, career, crisis and disaster, among other things.

Burroughs has been advising Harris for years, but lately has had a more prominent role as Harris stopped listening to other campaign advisers. Burroughs said she has little role in the campaign beyond helping reach out to religious voters and is merely a Bible study partner and close friend.

Friends and advisers say Harris has been deeply religious all her life, but religion recently has become a central part of her campaign. Campaign staffers warily describe Harris as leading a "Christian crusade."

"It was always part of the background, but it was never an integral part of the campaign. It never engulfed her," said former campaign manager Jim Dornan, who quit the campaign in November but keeps in touch with staffers. "She's grasping for a pillar she thinks this campaign can be raised on."

Her top campaign advisers, having failed to persuade Harris to drop her struggling campaign against Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson, are preparing to leave. Those include Ed Rollins, a highly regarded GOP strategist and her top campaign adviser; Adam Goodman, her longtime Tampa-based media consultant; and campaign manager Jamie Miller. Harris has been aggressively campaigning for support among religious conservatives, hitting large churches and headlining a "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference in Broward County last weekend. She told hundreds of attendees she was "doing God's work" with her campaign.

Sounds like it's about time for an intervention, doesn't it?