Calling Kaloogian's Bluff: Had Howard Kaloogian never heard of the blogosphere? That’s alright, because the blogosphere had never heard of Howard Kaloogian until a couple of days ago, when the GOP candidate to replace disgraced and imprisoned San Diego congressman Randy Cunningham posted this photo to his website. Kaloogian claimed it was a photo taken on a recent visit to Baghdad, and that it showed (a) how normal life is for many ordinary Iraqis and (b) how the image of the Iraqi capital portrayed by the media is a negative distortion.

Only problem is, the photograph was taken in a suburb of Istanbul. It took progressive bloggers precisely 48 hours to find conclusive photographic evidence of Kaloogian’s duplicity. That’s the power of the blogosphere. That’s also why the notion that posting information directly to the blogosphere is a way of avoiding scrutiny is so ridiculous. Going to the blogosphere invites scrutiny, and that scrutiny is more intense and less forgiving than anything the mainstream media can muster.