(With 1054 US troops now dead in Iraq. Just by way of reminder.)
By Brad Friedman on 9/29/2004, 5:21pm PT  

Has it come to this? Doctored pictures on the world wide web's #1 news website in order to try and defeat and/or smear John Kerry?

Drudge has been running this uncredited photo since last night on his website a with the headline "KERRY ON ORANGE ALERT: SKIN TRANSITION ON EVE OF DEBATE"...

Drudge doesn't supply the source for the original photo and we he's run lifted and doctored photos before, as recently as during the Democratic Convention. However, an examination of other news photos from the same event on September 27th in Spring Green, WI, clearly shows Drudge's photo to be either phony or doctored.

This one is from Reuters...


(original photo source page)

Note the bald man to the right of Kerry is the same many on the left of Kerry in the doctored Drudge photo.

And this one also from Reuters...


(original photo source page)

And this one from AP where though Kerry looks a bit more tan, it's nothing like the one that Drudge is running...


(original photo source page)

Note the woman in red behind Kerry in both this and the doctored Drudge photo.

And just for good measure --- what a world --- here's an AP photo of Bush from September 24 --- undoctored --- but appearing rather orange himself...


(original photo source page)

I can't believe, frankly, with thousands dead, dying, injured, held captive and beheaded in Iraq and the largest budget deficit in the history of mankind in this country that we're wasting our time with this kind of bullshit. Such is the case of the world, I guess, when running against the "Anything to Win" man in the White House and his cronies in the Rightwing Smear Media.

(Special thanks to John Aravosis of the excellent AMERICABlog for posting this item for me over there while we were knocked out over here today!)

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