Unintentional humor award

This is just too good. The March 15 issue of Newsweek, reporting on concerns among Rethuglican strategists over the reaction to Bush's exploitation of 9/11, says that there is

[a]nother, less publicized aspect of the ad flap: Everyone but the firefighters were paid actors. The firefighters posing in a firehouse was "stock" film footage of volunteer firefighters - shot and available for purchase to the general public.

These people can't even lie honestly.

Update March 10: Turns out even that was better than the truth. This is the original version of the paragraph, which was amended to the one above but has now reappeared on the posted article at MSNBC.com:

Another less-publicized aspect of the ad flap: the use of paid actors—including two playing firefighters with fire hats and uniforms in what looks like a fire station. "Where the hell did they get those guys?" cracked Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which has endorsed John Kerry, when he first saw the ads. (A union spokesman said the shots prompted jokes that the fire hats looked like the plastic hats "from a birthday party.") "There's many reasons not to use real firemen," retorted one Bush media adviser. "Mainly, its cheaper and quicker."

Some years ago, photographer Jill Freedman said in her book Firehouse that firefighters wore "the only uniform I can respect, fighting the only war I can believe in." As someone who agrees with that sentitment, I can only look at the Bush team and go "ewwwww."