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.
I did not say the memos were not fake. I said that an accurate copy of a real original memo is just as "real" as the original, although much more difficult to validate. Burden of proof should be on the one presenting the copied documents.
Which makes me think he/she will not have a very long stay at DU! lol
thxs!
Important companion thread - David Horowitz is highlighting people that we need to know as our enemies in this fight for the future of America.
The man behind the attack on Guantanamo (traitorous b*st*rd Michael Ratner)
front page mag ^ | 6-16-05 | DiPippo
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1424416/posts
That DUer just lost his posting priviledges...LOL
Originals destroyed, oh how convenient...the credibility of the reporter and the memos are about gone.
Violations of Civil Liberties are an American Tradition
Paging Mr. Rather..
In the first place, you can't "retype" a memo and guarantee its accuracy. I've edited essay collections for publication, and in my experience even the most experienced scholars constantly misquote original material when you check the sources.
In the second place, the assertion that these memos are accurate, plus the assertion that these memos even existed in the first place, rests on the word of one man. After all we've been through with the press, anyone who trusts the word of a news reporter is an idiot.
So, we have only his word that these documents were accurately transcribed and only his word that they existed in the first place. You can even add a third possibility: that the sources leaked to him by someone in the agency with a political agenda were fakes. How can anyone prove anything, given these facts?
A perfect example that DU cannot stand the truth, honest analysis, or reality.
Geee, that's exactly what Dan rather and SEE?BS said. What the heck are you, a democrat?
"Makin' copies!"
The memos have just been discredited...
...oh, that's different...the memos authenticity maybe in question, but the contents are accurate...where have I heard this before...
What now? Its time to fight, who is going to argue this in the public forum? We know what is going on but daily soundbites from the MSM sounds pretty damaging. Who gets the word out. Call Rush, Call Sean, just make calls to all stations, newspapers, congressmen, ghostbusters (for heavens sake) I beg you people not to sit around and wait for someone else to do it. It is now the time to stand up and be heard. We have to work harder than them. Now lets go do it.
If this continues, we are going to need a "Fake, But Accurate (FBA) Alert!
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