We hear from critics on the left all the time. One of them emailed me this photo which bears a .mil suffix, seeming to indicate a DoD origin. Various lefty sites have complained about what they say is Photoshopping. My eyes are none too good, and my expertise non—existent.

If the DoD has supplied a fake photo, I want to know about it. If they were hoaxed, we also need to know about it. We need to get to the bottom of this. If true, it is inexcusable.

Thomas Lifson   8 07 06

Douglas Hanson writes:

I am not an expert, but the links and presentation of the so—called doctored photo are themselves suspicious.  This is the link to the photo. Supposedly this is a link to DoD's news service.  Yet, when I went directly to the photo's link, I received a pop—up add.  As an official Pentagon and government site, DefenseLink never has pop—up ads.  Also, look at the date in the address.  If the photo doctoring took place on October 28, 2004 as a means of boosting GW's popularity with the troops before the election, why would a link have a date two years earlier?  Perhaps someone who sent you this item has faked the .mil suffix also.

Update: according to Howard Kurtz in the WaPo in late October, 2004, the pictures were indeed altered.

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt defended the doctored ad, said the 2002 photo of a crowd in Fort Drum, N.Y., was electronically altered because part of it was blocked by the president's podium. He dismissed as "ridiculous" suggestions that it was wrong for the campaign to change the picture of an actual event to improve the shot, noting that "real soldiers" were involved. But Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman later told CNN that "we're correcting the editing error" to substitute the unaltered photo.

The phrase "fake but accurate" drifts unpleasantly to mind. This was the wrong thing to do. And entirely unnecessary.