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.
How convenient that the originals were destroyed, ha ha.
Let's see those copies!
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
gunga dan, call your agent and pack a bag your lying ratmedia career may be back up and running.
HELLO!!!
Oh that pesky Lucy!
Honest journalism should tag these memos as 'alleged'.
What ever happened to CBS's search for Lucy, anyway?
Are you telling me that this memo is a re-type of several memeos put together? Are you telling me this? GD - this just maybe the final straw for me. HELLO PEOPLE. THe libs have declared war on me, my president and this country. Its time to make some noise. UGH..... Maybe we can fake a memo, huh. No one seems to check. Oh they would for on a conservative republican, wouldnt they.
That is hilarious--
DAM! If Bill Burkett had thought of that, he'd be eating steak and chicken instead of black-eyed peas and rice. Mary Mapes would be eating on the arm at Elaine's, instead of waiting tables in Greenwich Village and Dan Rather would still flying CBS Nightly News into a death spiral instead of boring strangers in airport lobbies with his tales of daring-do in Afganistan 25 years ago.
LOL!!!!! Hey DU investigate this, you idiots!
Who wants to go break the news to Conyers on his blog?
gunga dan, call your real estate agent you're about to get a British Room mate from the Times and that ain't the NY Times.
FYI
What???? Retyped copies? Ala Dan Rather's memos. OMG
Why wasn't that memo marked DBR? (Destroy Before Reading?)
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