There’s been a bit of a flap about a photo showing John Kerry sitting in a cafeteria at the US Embassy in Baghdad. Apparently, right-wingers have been having a snicker-fest about how the “troops are shunning Kerry” by not sitting next to him. Here’s the photo:

Now, the main point to be made is, even if this were true, then why would it be relevant? Whatever his presidential ambitions might be, Kerry is a has-been, and serves now as little more than a punching bag for the right wing–and ironically, even then, only after studied distortion to make a normal situation appear scandalous or pathetic.

But, OK, let’s consider the photo as if it actually meant something. First: it’s taken at the US Embassy, and not a military mess hall. Note that in the photo above, there are a good number of people in view, and only one is in a uniform. While more soldiers might be expected to be making use of the embassy cafeteria in Baghdad than in a US embassy elsewhere, it is hardly a stretch to imagine there not being soldiers there all the time. Not to mention that this is a single moment out of a long lunch; this does not prove, for example, that Kerry was not surrounded by others just a few minutes prior or after. This could have been the tail end of an event, for example, with Kerry staying on to discuss matters with a single person.

But it gets better. At first, because of a year-old date stamp and apparent cropping of the photo, left-wing blogs initially called the photo a fake. It seems that while the photo was cropped, that it is not fake, and the photographer may simply have forgotten to set the date stamp on the camera.

But the irony comes in when Michelle “Moonbat” Malkin attempted to prove the authenticity of the first photo by posting a second photo:

Malkin makes a note of Kerry’s clothing being the same and the table looks similar, but if you look closely, you’ll note that the cups are different and the flowers are missing (the tablecloth may also be different). Likely this was taken at a different time on the same day, possibly even at a different location.

But the true irony lies in the fact that Kerry is surrounded by soldiers in uniform. In order to prove the validity of the photo showing that Kerry is being “shunned” by the soldiers, Malkin showed a photo of Kerry surrounded by soldiers. Talk about stupidity.

As it turns out, the photo that right-wing bloggers have been hyping up was taken while Kerry was giving a media interview, according to Frank Lowenstein, Senator Kerry’s foreign policy staffer:

It’s a weird feeling seeing this photo of Sen. Kerry debated and decoded like some artifact out of the DaVinci Codes. It’s strange to me because I was there when the photo was taken. I traveled with Sen. Kerry throughout his Middle East trip. I’m his foreign policy staffer. Myself and Major McKnight were sitting right there when this photo was snapped.

Snubbed? Alone? Hardly. Sen. Kerry isn’t eating alone. In fact that photo is at an off the record breakfast meeting Senator Kerry conducted early Sunday morning with the very real Marc Santora of the New York Times Baghdad bureau and his younger colleague from the newspaper. The man shown in the green shirt across from Sen. Kerry is Marc Santora. Right after that interview was completed, Senator Kerry videotaped a message expressing his and the country’s support for the troops, to be shown on the armed services network in Iraq. Just the night before, Sen. Kerry was in that very same mess hall at a table where he ate dinner with about 10 U.S. soldiers.

Additionally, Senator Kerry spent nearly a day and half (out of two days in Iraq) outside of the Green Zone because he felt strongly that he wanted to hear from troops on the front lines. On Saturday morning, he greeted U.S. soldiers in Basra, and also met many British troops while he was there. On Saturday afternoon, he flew to FOB (Forward Operating Base) Warhorse, where he had a town hall meeting with over 100 soldiers. On Sunday morning, he was briefed by U.S. commanders at a training camp for Iraqi security forces. On Sunday evening, he traveled to another FOB where he had a long dinner in the camp mess hall with soldiers, including many from Massachusetts. These troops are nothing short of amazing, and my boss knows that with every fiber of his being. He’s a combat veteran. He’s been there.

Which brings us back to the original point: the whole thing is a non-issue, little more than wingnut bloggers trying to squeeze yet another let’s-ridicule-Kerry story out of an out-of-context story with a completely fabricated conclusion sewn into it.