Posted on 06/19/2005 6:53:54 AM PDT by mabelkitty
The media and the Leftists have had a field day with the Downing Street memos that they claim imply that the Bush administration lied about the intelligence on WMD in order to justify the attack on Iraq. Despite the fact that none of the memos actually say that, none of them quote any officials or any documents, and that the text of the memos show that the British government worried about the deployment of WMD by Saddam against Coalition troops, Kuwait and/or Israel, the meme continues to survive.
Until tonight, however, no one questioned the authenticity of the documents provided by the Times of London. That has now changed, as Times reporter Michael Smith admitted that the memos he used are not originals, but retyped copies (via LGF and CQ reader Sapper):
The eight memos — all labeled "secret" or "confidential" — were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times. Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.
The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have circulated widely). A senior British official who reviewed the copies said their content appeared authentic. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the material.
Well, all the lying fools aren't on our side of the pond obviously. This copies story is as lame as it gets.
I wondered the same thing.
Then I remembered. The Dan Rather story was on a Tuesday or Wednesday, and it didn't hit the news until Friday at noon. Then it hit hard.
I think the news media is going to wait to see what happens next.
re-typed???
Not xeroxed, not printed from hard drive, not even faxed from a Kinko's in Texas.
Re-typed?
Where's that damned turnip truck?
It doesn't matter if the memo is fake. It's a flunkie's interpretation of something said by a third party. IOW, it's someone's opinion. Everybody's got one.
Yeah. I can't believe they actually expect to get somewhere with junk like this. Add a few more Republican positions in '06. Better yet, who's our next Republican president going to be?
while the DSM has no legs, I think they (the left) will make it have legs...we should not be unestimating this at all.
Powerline
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/010784.php
If They Were Fakes, They'd Say More
Lots of people are starting to question the authenticity of the "Downing Street Memos": the Alamo City Commando, Captain Ed, and many others. Some of the circumstances are indeed strange. We now know that the reporter who publicized the memos, Michael Smith of the London Times, claims that after receiving the documents from a leaker, he had a secretary retype the documents using an old-fashioned typewriter, and then either destroyed or returned the copies he had originally obtained. Why would anyone do that? Beats me, but the story is oddly reminiscent of Bill Burkett's tale about how he made photocopies of the documents he obtained after a phone call from the mythical Lucy Ramirez, and then burned the originals. Further, the documents have been "authenticated" only by the Associated Press, which showed them to an anonymous British government source who said they "appeared authentic." This is essentially worthless as evidence, especially since the anonymous source could only have seen the typed mock-ups.
Nevertheless, I very much doubt that the documents are fakes, for two reasons. First, to my knowledge no one in the British government has denied their authenticity. The "Downing Street memos" are much different from the CBS National Guard documents in this important respect: the CBS documents were ostensibly authored by Jerry Killian, who had been dead for twenty years. The Downing Street documents, on the other hand, were allegedly authored by, and relate to meetings recently conducted by, a group of men who are very much alive and well. I can't conceive of a reason why they would fail to attack the documents' genuineness if there were a basis for doing so.
Second, if the Downing Street memos were fakes, they would say more. As we have noted before, the memo that has been most widely trumpeted on the left says little or nothing of significance. What it does do, however, is confirm the sincere worry at the highest level of the British government about the possibility that Saddam would use his weapons of mass destruction either against coalition troops, or against Kuwait or Israel. Here again, the contrast with the 60 Minutes documents is instructive. Those documents were neatly constructed to give the Democrats just what they needed to attack President Bush's Guard service. They provided the evidence that some on the left thought ought to exist, but in fact didn't. By contrast, the Downing Street memos, while interesting, are innocuous. If someone went to the trouble of faking them, I would expect him to fake something better.
Given what we now know about journalistic standards in many quarters, and the lack of any meaningful authentication of the Downing Street memos, it is not surprising that some critics are questioning them. But, as I said, I will be very surprised if their content turns out not to be genuine.
Posted by John at 12:21 PM
When I started reading this thread, my first thought, was that perhaps this was why Kerry never did take the "memo to the Senate floor", like he promised to do weeks ago...
Maybe he has been warned by his Brit friends that there is no "there" there!!!
so Kerry never did take the memo to the floor?
good to hear
...As we have noted before, the memo that has been most widely trumpeted on the left says little or nothing of significance...So, it was probably "fake, but irrelevant" -- eh?
unbelievable
I don't think this means they were legitimate, though.
I don't know. Say they are legitimate. So what? George Bush and Tony Blair decided that it was time for Saddam to go, I don't have any problem with that, and I think neither do the vast majority of Iraqis.
A senior British official who reviewed the copies said their content appeared authentic. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the material.
Appeared.
That doesn't read like an endorsement to me. Especially since tinkering with only a few choice words here or there could really change the flavor of the document.
I seem to remember I read, when I first heard about these ''memos'' that the source had the originals in his posession in case they were questioned for authenticity. Now he's saying they are destroyed! Which is it?......... And oh I forget, if this story ends up blowing in the RATS faces I guess Karl Rove set them up again!
The reporter's story that he 'copied' the documents and destroyed 'originals' to intentionally sunder the chain of custody makes any such documents worthless on their face, prima facie. Don't believe me? Have your hero try to introduce them into any US court (other than Kangaroo Konyers and whoever he can fit into the water closet with him) as evidence.
So you are wasting your time here, noob, unless of course someone is paying you, in which case you are wasting their time.
They only time I have seen Kerry this last few weeks was when he was standing BEHIND Sen. Mary Landrieu trying to glom onto her and get some credit for the bill that she and Sen. George Allen sponsored that gave a sense of the Senate that lynching is a bad thing, and an apology is due to the victims and victim's families that were lynched in the past...
He stood in the back with his considerable nose stuck up in the air, like he is the king, and expected praise...blech!
BTW, this wasn't even on the Senate floor...
Yeah, I had my secretary re-type the memos on a typewriter and I destroyed the originals, but my secret friend in the government says "the content appears authentic". :^)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.