Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

HH: I'm sitting in the Empire State Building. Michael, I'm sitting in the Empire State Building, which has been in the past, and could be again, a target. Because in downtown Manhattan, it's not comfortable, although it's a lot safer than where you are, people always are three miles away from where the jihadis last spoke in America. So that's ... civilians have a stake in this. Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.

Bloggers are raising questions about the authenticity of a photo -- purportedly of a Baghdad street -- posted on the Web site of Howard Kaloogian, a Southern California Republican running for the seat of the freshly incarcerated Duke Cunningham. Kaloogian's site says that "We took this photo of dowtown [sic] 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."

Josh Marshall picks up on speculation from Daily Kos and elsewhere that the photo was taken not in Baghdad, but in Turkey. Dissecting the picture, Marshall points out that "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.'" Marshall also posts an email from a reader in Baghdad who asked his Iraqi staff what they thought of the picture and reported that "they all just laughed."