Scotto The Dupe?

OK, I'm just flabbergasted by this -- it seems that US Senator Scott Brown, who sits on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, as well as the Senate Armed Services Committee -- went around earlier suggesting that he had seen in briefings photographs proving Osama bin Laden's death, when in fact he had seen the hoax "dead Osama" photos you and I and everyone else saw on Facebook.

The earlier claims were in the context of whether the Obama administration should release photos of bin Laden's death, which makes it hard to imagine why Brown would refer to photos he had seen in the public realm.

It certainly seemed clear that he was suggesting that the public didn't need to see these unreleased photos, because he, in private briefings, had seen them, and could assure you that they were convincing proof of Osama's death. 

Here's what Brown was saying earlier, from the Boston Herald:

The Wrentham Republican said he had been fully briefed on the entire operation. “Let me assure you that he is dead, that bin Laden is dead,” said Brown. “I have seen the photos and we have received the briefings.”

WCVB (thebostonchannel.com) has video of Brown saying essentially the same thing. So does Fox25. It didn't slip out; he did a round of interviews making that specific claim.

This afternoon, Brown's office released a statement that "The photo that I saw and that a lot of other people saw is not authentic."

(This was a very poor choice of words; that quote is already going viral among the conspiratorial-minded misinterpreting it as the Senator claiming that the photos being shown to Senators by the White House are doctored.)

There has been little elaboration so far, and I have not yet heard back from the Senator's spokespeople.

This doesn't quite rise to the level of Chuck Turner showing the fake "Army rape" photos -- but then again, Turner only sits on the Boston City Council, not on two of the most important national-security bodies in the US government. I'm hoping for an explanation; for now, I'm flabbergasted.