AP screwed the pooch on this one. They want bad news so bad they don't even look closely anymore.
AP has been known to make it up. See, e.g., "Crowd booed when Bush announced Clinton was hospitalized, and wished him well." They don't get caught often enough, IMO.
Seriously this is worse than the Dan Rather fake documents thing. Because people actually understand it. No arguments over "superscript" and such.
It's like how Al Gore sold his soul to the Communist Chinese, but was brought down when he lied about his dog's arthritis medicine.
Actually, the AP report is loaded with disclaimers that make it pretty clear they didn't believe the photo either.
"...the image of what appears to be..."
"According to the website..."
"The claim could not be verified."
As much as I hate the AP, I have to hand it to them that they reported facts. Let's give credit when it's due--stick AND carrot.
Exactly!! They were like "Oh please oh please oh please let it be true!" Anything to bring optimism about Iraq down a notch.