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Posted on 06/20/2005 1:25:27 AM PDT by auzerais
Are Downing Street memos authentic or elaborate hoax?
Blogs question credibility of reporter who typed copies, destroyed originals
Are the highly publicized Downing Street memos authentic government documents that show the Bush administration lied about pre-war intelligence on weapons of mass destruction?
Or are they part of an elaborate hoax – akin to CBS's infamous National Guard memos on George W. Bush's military service?
Many of the same blogs that successfully challenged Dan Rather's documents are now questioning whether the Downing Street memos are for real.
With Times of London reporter Michael Smith admitting the memos he used in his stories are not originals, but copies he retyped, the controversy seems to be reaching a fever pitch.
"Until tonight ... no one questioned the authenticity of the documents provided by the Times of London," said CaptainsQuartersBlog, one of the sites behind the Rather scandal. "That has now changed, as Times reporter Michael Smith admitted that the memos he used are not originals, but retyped copies.
The eight memos – all labeled "secret" or "confidential" – were first obtained by Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.
Smith told the Associated Press 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 showed the documents to an unnamed senior British official who said they "appeared authentic."
"Readers of this site should recall this set of circumstances from last year," reported CaptainsQuartersBlog. "The Killian memos at the center of CBS' 60 Minutes Wednesday report on George Bush' National Guard service supposedly went through the same laundry service as the Downing Street Memos. Bill Burkett, once he'd been outed as the source of the now-disgraced Killian memos, claimed that a woman named Lucy Ramirez provided them to him -- but that he made copies and burned the originals to protect her identity or that of her source."
The blog asked: Why would a reporter do such a thing?
While reporters need to protect their sources, at some point stories based on official documents will require authentication -- and as we have seen with the Killian memos, copies make that impossible.
"This, in fact, could very well be another case of 'fake but accurate.' where documents get created after the fact to support preconceived notions about what happened in the past," said the blog. "One fact certainly stands out -- Michael Smith cannot authenticate the copies. And absent that authentication, they lose their value as evidence of anything."
The blog goes on to suggest that even if the memos could be authenticated, "they're still meaningless." That they simply do not contain any smoking-gun evidence of lies by the Bush administration or the British government of Tony Blair.
Hopefully these fake memos will prove to be as bogus as GungaDan's "fake" anti-Bush Killian docs and thus show to the world exactly the leftist pro-islamofascists for the liars they are.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
This sounds hot. It would be fun if it really was a hoax. Some evidence would do the job. We would be able to knock out some MSM again.
"ARE THE DOWNING STREET MEMOS A HOAX?" is not the original published title.
Please use only the original published title, not an edited version when you post a story. Thanks.
These lying scumbags will never learn.
So much for the "Downing Street Memos", lol.
No offense, but I think you got it backwards - - the memos are now a hoax until somebody comes up with evidence that they are NOT.
Did Lucy Ramirez Find The Downing Street Memos?(Fake, but accurate memos??)--The best part is that the reporter retyped these memos and destroyed the originals.
Good Lord, not this again. If they don't have the originals, what do they have?
And my links:
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The MSM is ignoring something that the "Memos" prove. Dubya and Blair believed Saddam had WMDs before the war.
They discussed what would happen if Saddam used WMDs on the first day of the war.
Bush didn't lie, and liberals died.
DK
Funny how, oh what's her name? I can't remember, was it Mary Mapes? The CBS producer?
Remember during the Rathergate memo mess, didn't it come out that she had spoken with the kerry campaign about that fake memo before they aired their fake memo story?
Funny how kerry was in on the beginning of that big lie and now this one two.
More false charges from the Liberals. Makes you wonder about the Durbin memo doesn't it?
But the destruction of the originals IS a smoking gun.
If the two versions were identical, why destroy the originals?
Inquiring minds want to know....
Nothing funny about it, just standard KGB procedure.
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The British Official Secrets Act has teeth and the courts in Old Blighty don't entertain a lot of tolerance for claims by journalist about protecting sources. Under current conditions prosecution may not be politically possible, but with a shift of political winds, it could very likely happen.
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