Obviously.

As noted by Ahab below, some bloggers, including the EU Referendum, came up with evidence that the Qana atrocity was staged! The bloggers based this claim on their peerless expert opinions about degree of rigor mortis of the bodies, the types of injuries the kids had, the amount of dirt on the rescue workers' clothes, and time stamps on the photos posted on the web.

Now, well-known conservative radio personality, Rush Limbaugh, has weighed in:

"These photographers are obviously willing to participate in propaganda," Limbaugh said. "They know exactly what's being done, all these photos, bringing the bodies out of the rubble, posing them for the cameras, it's all staged. Every bit of it is staged and the still photographers know it."

Obvious, maybe, to a guy like Rush, who obviously has an M.D./Ph.D. in Forensic Pathology, a Ph.D. in Forensic Psychology and a Master's in Photo Analysis. Just so you know, he also did an internship just last year at AP, so obviously knows how their system works. But it's not so obvious to, you know, the photographers and photo editors in question. First, they note that the time stamps on the photos do NOT indicate when they were taken:

...AP does not distribute pictures sequentially; photos are moved based on news value and how quickly they are available for an editor to transmit. The AP indicates to its members when they are sent on the wire, and member Web sites sometimes use a different time stamp to show when they are posted.

They also express their confusion and amazement that such a thing would even be considered.

"It's hard to imagine how someone sitting in an air-conditioned office or broadcast studio many thousands of miles from the scene can decide what occurred on the ground with any degree of accuracy," said Kathleen Carroll, AP's senior vice president and executive editor.

Carroll said in addition to personally speaking with photo editors, "I also know from 30 years of experience in this business that you can't get competitive journalists to participate in the kind of (staging) experience that is being described."

Kath obviously has forgotten Rush's internship in her office. I guess she really was that sloshed at the Holiday party last year! She obviously forgot how he single-handedly solved that filing problem which had vexed the office for nearly a decade!

Despite Rush's qualifications, another photo editor type pointed out how unlikely it was that people would even be able to set up such a charade in a war zone:

"Do you really think these people would risk their lives under Israeli shelling to set up a digging ceremony for dead Lebanese kids?" asked Patrick Baz, Mideast photo director for AFP. "I'm totally stunned by first the question, and I can't imagine that somebody would think something like that would have happened."

The AP had three different photographers there who weren't always aware of what the others were doing, and filed their images to editors separately, said Santiago Lyon, director of photography.

Patrick?! Santiago?! Don't you remember Rush astounding you with his polymath knowledge? Remember how Patrick would fly in from France and you two would let your inter-agency rivalries rest while you and Rush discussed the very best photographs - the reason you all entered this dirty business in the first place? You remember!! He's brilliant, guys! Don't you remember he knows everything?! Obviously.

Cross posted to Little Green Fascists in honor of Rush. Obviously.

Update: Glenn Greenwald makes the point as well as anybody can... perhaps better!