Everything's Coming Up Kaloogian

The blood from Ben Domenech's scalp had hardly dried before the liberal blogosphere tomahawked another fact-juggling conservative. Today's victim: former California Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian, a GOP candidate for former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham's open House seat.

Kaloogian had made a sort of comeback in 2004, co-founding a Bizzaro MoveOn.org wittily dubbed MoveAmericaForward. He visited Iraq as part of the group's "Voices of Soldiers" Truth Tour, and a photo of a bustling Baghdad street made its way from the frontlines to Kaloogian's campaign site. Forget the MSM—here was proof that "Iraq (including Baghdad) is much more calm and stable than what many people believe it to be."

On Tuesday afternoon Daily Kos blogger AnthonyLA questioned whether this vista of non-Arabic signs and scantily-clad women actually came from Baghdad. Eight hours later he got a response from jem6x, who'd found a picture of the same street from a different angle. (Compare the two angles here.) The street wasn't in Baghdad but in an Istanbul suburb called Bakirkoy. Turks have never felt the liberating winds of a US land invasion, but their city streets have generally turned out calm and stable.

After a pile-on that involved Joshua Micah Marshall and TPM Muckraker blogger Justin Rood, Kaloogian backtracked and replaced the pic with a Baghdad establishing shot that does a lot less to advertise the city's dynamism and white-hot excitement.