It all must have been rather embarrassing: there was George Bush, addressing a large military crowd in his latest campaign ad, and then came along Daily Kos and said some of the soldiers were not real. In particular that group of three servicemen who popped suspiciously up at several places in the audience. For their part, the Bush campaign held up its hands and admitted the video editors had used a computer programme to boost audience numbers but there was no intention to mislead (which more or less the same line it takes on the Iraq war intelligence).
Despite the doctoring, Kos's readers saw some truths in the crowd. "It's a perfect metaphor for an administration that thinks reality doesn't matter and that is all too eager to exploit our troops for its own political ends," writes one. "Even if it has to manipulate them to do so."
