Posted on 03/23/2005 2:28:22 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Post's 'GOP memo' questioned Paper claimed Republicans exploiting Schiavo case Posted: March 23, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
A media watchdog is questioning the veracity of the Washington Post's claim that Republicans sent out a memo with the intent of exploiting the Terri Schiavo case for political purposes.
The Post's Mike Allen reported on the memo, which allegedly called the Schiavo case "a great political issue."
But Accuracy in Media Editor Cliff Kincaid believes the response of the Post's Robert Kaiser to questions about the memo raises doubts.
When asked why the memo had not been seen, Kaiser said, "Good question. ... Mike is not here now so I can't confirm my hunch that his sources read him the memo but didn't give him a copy. That happens quite often these days."
Kincaid says the reply is revealing.
"Read him the memo but didn't give him a copy?" he asked. "And that 'happens quite often these days?' It's no wonder the media get into trouble when they rely on documents in their stories. Is it possible that this anonymous memo is a fraud?"
Kincaid said the political aspects of the purported memo mainly were two sentences:
"This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue. This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats."
Did anyone notice the memo's reference to this being "an important moral issue?" Kincaid asked. "The final sentence in the memo stated that, 'This legislation ensures that individuals like Terri Schiavo are guaranteed the same legal protections as convicted murderers like Ted Bundy."
Kincaid concludes the memo is based on moral considerations rather than political.
"This is the part of the memo, whatever its origin, that the media didn’t want to quote or examine," Kincaid said. "Can there be any doubt that the public perception of the case would change if people were informed by our press that Congress was trying to give the same rights to Terri Schiavo that are guaranteed to those on death row?"
Accuracy in Media has sent an e-mail to Allen asking him to confirm or deny authenticity of the memo, but he has yet to respond.
"The memo may have been written by some Republican somewhere," said Kincaid. "But there's no independent evidence at this point that it was authorized by a Republican senator or written by a top Republican staffer."
Kincaid said if the media are "confident that the memo is real, let them produce an actual copy and describe in detail how they verified it. There's no reason we should accept their claims about this memo at face value.
"Didn't we learn anything from memogate?" he asked, referring to the bogus documents used by CBS in a story about President Bush's National Guard service.
ok i think we need to call in buckhead to get to the bottom of this :-)
Anyone check where Jayson Blair is employed these days? Or Dan Rather?
The RATS silence has lost them millions of handicapped votes. Are they really as dumb as they act ?
It used to be they called the 'Pubbies the "Stupid Party". But everything is reletive. The 'Pubbies cannot touch the Donks for stupid anymore.
If the Left is ginning up a fake memo that is then given credence by a bloodthirsty MSM all in order to help Michael Schiavo murder his wife....
These people are truly evil.
hmmm....this actually sounds more like a DNC "talking points" memo...Deans' polling must have scared themselves about the publics reaction to all this.
If CBS News can forge a memo, so can the Washington Post.
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2005_03.php#009940
Here is an even better fisking of the memo. It raises even more issues, such as that it apparently made reference to the wrong Senate #, was not on letterhead and there is no indication who authored it, its structure doesn't fit with the talking points memo it supposedly is, and it reads more like how a moonbat thinks we think than how R's actually think.
When challenged about its authenticity, the reporter essentially said, "trust me" and relied on that Senators got it, rather than indicating he had any idea who wrote it.
Sounds like another dhimmicrat dirty trickster hoodwinked the MSM with another fraudulent document.
The guys at Powerline and their readers have pegged an important fact on this memo.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/
The memo references S. 529. IT'S THE WRONG BILL NUMBER. S. 529 had nothing - nothing - to do with Schiavo.
Oops, didn't see your post.
WP also reported last week that Bush was considering Carly Fiorina for the World Bank position..
SOP for the Leftist/MSM Complex. Their arrogance keeps them from learning anything from the CBS fiasco.
I would disagree with one aspect of your post--the lefties and MSM could care less about the Schiavos. They're just props, useful tools in promoting their eugenics agenda.
The Rathergate memos were obvious forgeries. As soon as people saw them, it was obvious.
Do you think that this time, someone in the blogsphere really did make this memo up to see how far they could scam the MSM? To see if the MSM has learned anything or that it would just see a chance to bash Republicans and run with it.
Has anyone actually seen the memo?
The link buckhead and I provide to Powerlineblog has an image of it as well as a link to it. It is from a news monitoring site, so it is possible that it is not the actual memo used by ABC. ABC hasn't released anything, but this is reputed to be it and it has not been denied.
My immediate reaction to the 'talking points' memo that was quoted on the Sunday talk shows was that it was too blatantly political to have been sent by a savvy political group.
The MSM references to the memo keep saying it was a GOP memo--but they avoid identifying the author or organization that supposedly put it out. So where did it come from?
And the Republican on MTP said they hadn't seen it.
It appears the Post, like CBS, will print anything if it bashes Bush.
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