Lindsay Graham and Baghdad Economics

Ever since John McCain had his Baghdad publicity stunt last weekend, most of the press and the blogging has focused on John McCain's pathetic publicity stunt in an attempt to provide cover for his ridiculous lie about how safe the streets of Baghdad were. We all know by now, thanks to the Larry Johnson piece that I linked to yesterday, what kind of military presence was required to make things look normal.

There was another element to the whole story that I found disturbing. If you watch the CBS video of the press conference, you can see Senator Lindsay Graham bragging, "I bought 5 rugs for 5 bucks." Indiana Rep. Mike Spence smiles behind him in the video as he says it.

A little background: I used to sell rugs. It's been a long time, but I sold all kinds of rugs: Persian, Chinese, Indian, and the mass produced machine made rugs popular in the U. S. So I'm not an expert, but I have a little sense of the market in the U. S. for imported rugs from that part of the world.

We also get some background from yesterday's article in the Times on the market visited by the U. S. delegation. To the Times' credit, the reporter, Kirk Semple, took the time and initiative to speak directly to some of the vendors in that market and get their reactions. Predictably, they weren't too impressed with the heavily guarded American politicians responsible for the devastation wreaked upon their city. In the course of his reporting, Semple mentions one anonymous American who bought a rug, what the price was, and what he paid. Take a look:

During their visit on Sunday, the Americans were buttonholed by merchants and customers who wanted to talk about how unsafe they felt and the urgent need for more security in the markets and throughout the city, witnesses said.

“They asked about our conditions, and we told them the situation was bad,” said Aboud Sharif Kadhoury, 63, who peddles prayer rugs at a sidewalk stand. He said he sold a small prayer rug worth less than $1 to a member of the Congressional delegation. (The official paid $20 and told Mr. Kadhoury to keep the change, the vendor said.)

Now these prayer rugs sold in a public market in Baghdad are probably, safe to say, hand woven. We don't know from the story if they were hand knotted, or simply woven rugs, kalim style. We'll give the Senator the benefit of the doubt that they were the cheaper, simpler kalim style rugs. Those have no pile, simply a flat, woven rug, like a very course piece of cloth with serging on two sides and tasselled on the other sides. That wouldn't be a very comfortable rug to kneel on, but so be it. We know from the Times that these rugs were about $1, but an American paid $20, and if it were a cheap, small, woven kalim style rug we can almost imagine it going for that in an American store. So this American probably, to his credit, paid about what he thought it was worth, rather than what he thought he could get it for.

We also know, then, that Lindsay Graham had the opportunity to buy one of these, and actually bought five of them, and paid the $1 asking price. And was pretty smug about it.

He had the air of one of those tourists getting off a cruise ship and buying a cheap trinket in Mexico or the Dominican for next to nothing. But there's a big difference: he's not a tourist, he's a representative of the United States government on official business. And he's touring this market at great expense to the United States taxpayer and to the safety and security of the the vendors themselves.* And he throws down five bucks?

And to make matters worse, Mike Spence says it was like a summer market in Indiana. Well I have attended a lot of markets in Ohio a few miles from the Indiana border. And I don't know what the hell is going on across the border, but there's never been any kind of military presence at any summer fair or farmer's market I've been to. A lot of tomatoes, corn, and flies, but no humvees or blackhawk helicopters circling overhead. No snipers in the distance.

Does anyone else think this is shabby and cheap? Embarrassing even? Even if Graham paid a fair price, should he have forked over a little extra?

*As evidence of this, check out this post from TPM.

**Before publishing this, I went to Ebay and typed in "prayer rugs." And I have to admit, I found them in all price ranges (starting price) from $1 to $500. But to me, the larger point remains: What could Graham have afforded to pay for them, not what could he get them for.