Awwwwwwwkward.

Whoops:

In trying to win support for his escalation in Iraq, President Bush was reduced to quoting two bloggers in Baghdad -- who turned out to be brothers he had met here-- and their postings were more than three weeks old...

President Bush today was reduced to quoting two anonymous bloggers from Baghdad.

He cited them as evidence that his surge/escalation is working. One problem: their posts were written weeks ago, and re-published in the Wall Street Journal on March 7...

To back up his point that pulling out of Iraq would be a disaster, President Bush had said today, "They have bloggers in Baghdad, just like we've got here," in a speech to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Then he quoted two of them: "Displaced families are returning home, marketplaces are seeing more activity, stores that were long shuttered are now reopening. We feel safer about moving in the city now. Our people want to see this effort succeed."

Only hours later did the White House reveal that the bloggers were brothers, Mohammed and Omar Fadhil, and these supposedly little-known average Joes had met Bush in the Oval Office in 2004. They are dentists and write an English-language blog from Baghdad called IraqTheModel.com, also available via Pajamas Media.

Well, OK, that's kind of embarrassing but it's not like you're going to hang your entire defense of Operation Iraqi Clusterfuck on the rantings of two Iraqi brothers that ... that ... um ... uh-oh.

In other Blogging Tory news, climate change isn't happening because Tim Ball said so.