9 August 2006 @ 5:59PM >> Reuters isn’t the only outfit publishing questionable photos that just so happen to benefit Hizbollah’s propaganda campaign.

One Lebanese woman is shown in two pictures from two different locations taken two weeks apart, but in each picture, she is said to be mourning the destruction of her home:

In the first photograph, taken by Reuters, a woman is seen in front of a bombed out building in Beirut. “A Lebanese woman wails after looking at the wreckage of her apartment, in a building, that was demolished by the Israeli attacks in southern Beirut,” Reuters said in its caption. The photo was dated July 22 2006.

A second photograph of a woman who looks exactly like the woman in the first Reuters image, even bearing the same scar on her left cheek, is then supplied by the Associated Press.

“A Lebanese woman reacts at the destruction after she came to inspect her house in the suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon,” the Associated Press caption claimed. The date accompanying the photograph is August 5 2006, and the scenes behind the woman are different to those of the July 22 photo.

The New York Times also got into the act with a different transgression—but quickly issued a correction after being found out. The correction reads:

A picture caption with an audio slide show on July 27 about an Israeli attack on a building in Tyre, Lebanon, imprecisely described the situation in the picture. The man pictured, who had been seen in previous images appearing to assist with the rescue effort, was injured during that rescue effort, not during the initial attack, and was not killed.

The correct description was this one, which appeared with that picture in the printed edition of The Times: After an Israeli airstrike destroyed a building in Tyre, Lebanon, yesterday, one man helped another who had fallen and was hurt.

I guess the Times figured out that there’s quite a difference between being killed and falling down.

Although the Times corrected this issue quickly, last Saturday, the paper ran a front-page above-the-fold photo from Adnan Hajj, the Reuters photographer busted (and fired) for passing along doctored pictures.

Reuters felt that Hajj’s work was questionable enough to remove all 920 photos he submitted from their catalog, but the Times still has not even mentioned the Reuters photo scandal or otherwise explained the paper’s use of his photos.

9 August 2006 >> Is there any room in the Democratic Party for a candidate who is strong on defense and aggressive in the War on Terror? Democratic primary voters in Connecticut have answered that question with a resounding no. Senator Joseph Lieberman—one of the few prominent Democrats who understands the existential threat posed by radical Islam—has just been defeated by a left-wing pacifist named Ned Lamont.

Considering Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for Vice President just six years ago, this is quite a fall. So he’s ditching the party and running as an independent.

Despite the fact that I disagree with Lieberman on a great many issues, he understands the stakes in the only issue that really matters. We can shy away from this clash of civilizations, but that doesn’t mean our enemies will. And if nuclear bombs start going off in American cities—a very real possibility within the next ten years—then political disagreements on things like taxes are going to be meaningless.

I think this is a great loss for Connecticut, for Democrats, and for America. If we’re going to get serious about dealing with the Jihadists, we need more people like Lieberman in both parties. It’s too bad they’re no longer welcome in the Democratic Party.