{"id":759,"date":"2004-02-18T11:29:00","date_gmt":"2004-02-18T11:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tashuk.wordpress.com\/2004\/02\/18\/759\/"},"modified":"2004-02-18T11:29:00","modified_gmt":"2004-02-18T11:29:00","slug":"759","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/archives\/759","title":{"rendered":"More photography, LYING!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Take one part Kerry, one part Fonda …<\/p>\n

… and try to whip up a political row<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington<\/p>\n

Wednesday February 18, 2004<\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/international\/story\/0,3604,1150472,00.html<\/a><\/p>\n

A new dirty tricks campaign to embarrass the Democratic frontrunner, John Kerry, backfired ignominiously yesterday when it emerged that a widely circulated photograph of a protest against the Vietnam war was a crude forgery.<\/p>\n

The photograph, falsely credited to Associated Press, combined two separate images to make it appear as if Mr Kerry shared a stage at an anti-war rally in the early 1970s with the actress, Jane Fonda.<\/p>\n

Ms Fonda is reviled by many Vietnam vets for her wartime visit to Hanoi, and the image was widely aired over the internet by a fringe group of Vietnam veterans who have pursued a vendetta against Mr Kerry for years.<\/p>\n

In less than a week, the forgery travelled from a message board on a rightwing website to a Vietnam veterans’ mailing list to mainstream organisations. Two British national newspapers – the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday – used the photograph in editions on Friday last week and at the weekend.<\/p>\n

The revelation that the photograph was a fake follows the rumour that Mr Kerry had had an affair with a young trainee reporter.<\/p>\n

That claim, which started on the rightwing Drudge report website, was largely ignored by American papers when it first surfaced, but was leapt on by some British newspapers.<\/p>\n

On Monday the woman at the centre of the furore, Alexandra Polier, issued a statement in which she denied ever having had a relationship with Mr Kerry.<\/p>\n

Inside the Kerry campaign, Democratic operatives said yesterday they were certain that the forged photograph would not be the last attempt to try to discredit their candidate’s Vietnam war record.<\/p>\n

“There are going to be a lot of dirty tricks in the campaign. It’s like the story of the intern, which flew high as a kite before being shot down,” said John Hurley, Mr Kerry’s campaign adviser on veterans’ issues.<\/p>\n

Although it is possible to trace the Fonda-Kerry forgery through the internet, it was not clear yesterday who created the photograph. There was no direct evidence targeting the altered image to the Republican party.<\/p>\n

However, the episode was seized on by Democrats as evidence of Republican trickery in an election season already notable for its low tactics.<\/p>\n

The furore over the concocted photographs – and the smear that Mr Kerry had had an affair with Ms Polier – have also provoked a debate within the US media on its role in perpetuating campaign mud slinging.<\/p>\n

Various Republican grandees and officials from President George Bush’s re-election campaign have warned that operatives are mining Mr Kerry’s 18-year voting record in the Senate, as well as his history as a Vietnam veteran turned war protester, in search of damaging material. Mr Kerry has formidable critics in a fringe section of war veterans who played a key role in the distribution of the forged image.<\/p>\n

Although Mr Kerry is widely respected both for his courage in the Mekong delta and for his activism following his return from Vietnam, he has aroused the wrath of a small, but vocal minority.<\/p>\n

Among his most devoted enemies over the years is a veteran from North Carolina. Ted Sampley, a former Green Beret, was bitterly opposed to Mr Kerry’s leadership in re-establishing American relations with Vietnam, and openly accuses him of betraying missing US soldiers.<\/p>\n

The election campaign has given new meaning to Mr Sampley’s previously lonely campaign. On his website for veterans against Mr Kerry, he has portrayed the candidate in front of a Vietcong flag, and in a legitimate picture in a rally several rows behind Ms Fonda.<\/p>\n

He also played a crucial role in circulating the forgery. “It was a dream come true that picture coming up at this point of time,” he told the Guardian. “If it was real, I would be promoting it left, right and centre.”<\/p>\n

Mr Sampley says he suspected immediately the photograph was a fake, and he decided not to post it on his website. Instead, he claimed, he sent the image to six friends.<\/p>\n

“It’s a pyramid. I have no idea where it was going or not,” he said, adding: “I didn’t tell them not to publish it.”<\/p>\n

Ken Light, the photographer responsible for the original image of Mr Kerry, said yesterday that lawyers for the Corbis agency, which owns the picture, were contemplating legal action.<\/p>\n

“It made me feel very angry that it was a complete deception,” Mr Light said. “Having one of your images faked in that way for a political cause, or as part of a dirty tricks campaign, doesn’t make you very happy.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here are the components of how it was done.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The photograph never lies. Yea, right!!<\/p>\n

Also, checkout<\/p>\n

Whoslying http:\/\/whoslying.org<\/a><\/p>\n

San Fransisco Indymedia on:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/sf.indymedia.org\/news\/2004\/02\/1678852.php<\/a><\/p>\n

and FreeRepublic.com “A Conservative News Forum”<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.freerepublic.com\/focus\/f-news\/1076946\/posts<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a regular occurance. This photograph fro the Iraq conflict, got the photographer sacked. Quite right to.<\/p>\n

US war photographer sacked for altering image of British soldier<\/p>\n

http:\/\/tash_lodge.blogspot.com\/2003_03_30_tash_lodge_archive.html#91909155<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take one part Kerry, one part Fonda … … and try to whip up a political row Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Wednesday February 18, 2004 The Guardian http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/international\/story\/0,3604,1150472,00.html A new dirty tricks campaign to embarrass the Democratic frontrunner, John Kerry, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}