A real photo can still lie

There's a lot of discussion right now, as digital photography takes over from film, about whether digital photos can be "trusted".

The logic goes that because with a film image there's always the original negative to go back to, it's inherently more trustworthy than a digital image, where there's no unalterable original form.

Ignoring the fallacies in that argument for now... what I really want to talk about is how a photo, whether digital or film, can still tell a lie even if the photo hasn't been manipulated.

At issue is the photo at right, of Mr. Bush, during his "daring visit to Baghdad", apparently carrying a roast turkey on a platter, bringing it to the troops. You may have seen it on the front page of your local paper.

But, as Misleader.org reports:

According to the Washington Post, Bush was actually holding "a decoration, not a serving plate." In other words, he was holding a prop, not real food, and thus only pretending for the cameras to be serving up the holiday meal.

The White House will undoubtedly say in their defense that they never said it was a real turkey. Which may be true.

The point, though, is that they didn't have to. Thanksgiving is such an emotionally potent holiday in this country -- family, togetherness, cooperation -- that just one image of Mr. Bush carrying something that resembles a turkey to our young men and women in Iraq is a more powerful message than anything the White House could put in a press release. Let's get along. Let's work together. The patriarch has everything under control. Don't question him, just pass the sweet potatoes. Look, he's there for our troops.

(That last one, at least, being patently false: He may have been carrying a fake turkey, but the massive cuts in the White House's 2004 budget to programs that support military families are real. Housing, schools, or medical care for veterans, anyone?)

More about this on the Misleader site: Photograph of Fake Turkey Captures Bush Misleading.