Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs has a post on the "Downing Street Memos":
The Downing Street memos: fake but accurate.
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 the AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.
Captain Ed over at Captain's Quarters has another great post:
Readers of this site should recall this set of circumstances from last year. 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.
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. The AP gets a "senior British official" to assert that the content "appeared authentic", which only means that the content seems to match what he thinks he knows.
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. One fact certainly stands out — Michael Smith cannot authenticate the copies. And absent that authentication, they lose their value as evidence of anything.
Ed also points his readers to this post by Larisa Alexandrova of "The Raw Story":
“I [Michael Smith, who first reported on the memos] first photocopied them to ensure they were on our paper and returned the originals, which were on government paper and therefore government property, to the source,” he added.
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Article comments
1 - CommonSense
Hello,
Don't you know the main difference between US Press and the British Press over there, there is no freedom of the press protections in Britian. He had to destroy the originals because they would of implicated his source, if his office(s) would of been searched by British Officials. In the US we have protections.
2 - George Doctoroe
Well well, who am I going to believe. An accomplished British reporter who has worked for years to develop a good reputation and a string of successful investigative reports.. or government politicians whose major goal in life seems to be lying to a gullible population in order to continue war profiteering. Gee whiz.. its tough, but I'll go with the journalist.
3 - Dave Nalle
One would think that with a potentially controversial issue like this he would at least keep photocopies of the documents for his own protection, even if he never admitted it.
Dave
4 - Art Green
Like Dan Rather, George?
Neither side can claim that uneqivocally that they are right. Bloggers like myself are right to say that this is very fishy, but we can't say they are fakes. (No one has, to my knowlege.)
5 - Michael
Wow the right wing is really behind on this one.
These and I mean all of these documents have be authenticated by NBC, CNN and AP.
Michael Smith wrote a long explaination of everything maybe you should read it all.
In fact AP is so confident they are real they have them all up on there site as pdf's.
6 - Art Green
The PDF's are not the originals, they are the ones that were typed.
7 - Randy Case
Another Rathergate? Or another Martinez-gate that'll blow in these bloggers' faces?
Yep, these are the same guys who claimed the "How to Make Political Capital out of the Terri Schiavo Case" memo was a fake planted by the Democrats.
Then it turned out that Mel Martinez's office was actually behind it, and his legal counsel had to resign in shame.
8 - Stanley
Captian Ed is flat out wrong regarding the authentication of the memos. If Michael Smith is able to testify that he copied, word-for-word, the text from copies that he witnessed were made from the original memos, then the text is authentic, even in a court of law.
9 - marc
John Conyers (D-MI)who chaired the "Downing Street Memo Hearing" must feel a little stupid at the moment.
You're assuming conyers has enough active brain cells to produce such feelings.
10 - marc
Oh... and Stanley. What planet are you from.
Using your "legal advice" Rather could have done the same thing.
11 - Andrew
If they are fake, then why hasn't Blair come out and said so? He has access to the originals, and he could easily review them and report that they are indeed fake. Tellingly Blair has NOT discredited the memos' authenticity. This likely means either one of two things:
(1) The memos are indeed real; or
(2) The memos are fake and were INTENTIONALLY created by Iraq war SUPPORTERS as part of a plan to shrewdly discredit the evidence proving the Bush administration's lies that induced support for the war. Such a plan required that the memos include ACCURATE information. Not until knowledge of the memos sufficiently saturates the public will the perpetrators of this plan then reveal evidence to discredit the memos' authenticity. In doing so, the perpetrators will overstate the significance of the memos' lack of authenticity by arguing that it proves that the INFORMATION in the memos has been discredited (which logically, doesn't really follow if the information is supported by other evidence, which it is). Then, the next time Scott McClellan is asked about the Bush administration's misrepresentations leading up to the War resolution, McClellan can simply say, "the false allegations in those fake memos have been discredited," even though the memos are not the only source of the administrations' lies. Kind of a neat trick, isn't it?
12 - newleftpatriot
Whether or not the memos are real, the administration bungled the invasion, and continues to bleed money and lives. Perhaps the media should focus on the line in the quicksand as opposed to why we went over there in the first place.
13 - david r. mark
Isn't it convenient that the right-wing blogosphere -- always looking for a way to protect their conservative leadership -- immediately tries to discredit the memos as fake?
How about this: Instead of worrying about the memos, let's worry about the U.S. policy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let's worry about the 1,700-plus dead, the fact that we are not remotely close to exiting Iraq, the fact that we haven't caught Osama bin Laden or stopped the insurgency in Iraq.
Let's talk about the case that the U.S. has built, with the help of a lazy media, against Syria. Let's talk about the "fake" story, since recanted by our military, about Al Zaquari's trips to Syria.
Let's talk about how we're still giving Saudi Arabia an Iran free rides in our "war on terror," even though their hands are all over 9/11 and Al Qaeda.
Let's stop looking for excuses -- memos, real or imagined, that don't make a bit of difference in the world we live in today. Let's start examining what the Bush administration is actually doing in Iraq and its neighbors -- and whether that strategy makes sense.
14 - Randy KIrk
We don't mind discussing the issue. We do mind the press trying to discredit our president with fake goods. You should, too. After all, he is your president, also.
15 - RJ
Bush Is Hitler!
And I have the photocopied, poorly-transcribed memos to prove it!
16 - david r. mark
You're assuming that a couple of bloggers are correct, and all the media is wrong. Big assumption.
I'm just saying that a three-year-old memo about a war that's been ongoing for more than two years doesn't have a whole lot of meaning. True or not, the U.S. is still in Iraq, with very few friends helping out, with no plausible exit in sight, and possibly with plans on expanding into Syria.
That just seems a lot more important than whether a couple of bloggers have uncovered something about a three-year-old memo.
17 - Dave Nalle
David has a valid point. The fakeness of these memos is of relatively little important, just as the memos themselves are pretty meaningless. The memos wouldn't be a big issue if they were the originals, and as dubious copies they're even less relevant. There are no great revelations, no hideous crimes, and nothing terribly controversial in them.
Dave
18 - david r. mark
For what it's worth, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post had an article last week on the mainstream media's slow reaction in covering the Downing Street memos.
Top reason for not covering it: Unable to independently verify their authenticity.
Some have criticized the media for being lazy in that regard. But in light of the fake Al Zaquari in Syria story from the U.S. military, since recanted, and the Newsweek fiasco, caution isn't a bad idea.
That's not to say the media shouldn't be vigorous in covering this administration and its current actions. But again, our policy now is of far more importance than the ramifications of a three-year-old memo.
19 - Eric Olsen
it all boils down to "fixed" - the media has been lukewarm on it because there really isn't anything there
20 - GloomRaven
Well isn't this the point of the recent Democratic request that the memos be investigated? If there was an investigation, one of the first things they would want to do is verify the authenticity of the memoes. The fact that neither The Brits or the Americans have denied the authenticity of the memos is pretty damning in itself though. The Republicans have really hurt themselves by trying to keep this issue quiet and hoping that it died a quiet death like most anti-Bush-administration news articles. I just don't think they anticipated the commitment of the bloggers out there with all the info they want at thier fingertips. If the Republican's want to get rid of this story, they'll have a lot of catching up to do as far as spin goes. But first they'll have to change gears from keeping it inder the rug to completely bombarding the memo with as much discredit as possible. They probably would have succeeded in keeping it a secret if only Michael Jackson had been convicted. They need a new source of misdirection as far as mass media is concerned. Already Jeb Bush is digging up Terry Schiavo to rally the ignorrant. Maybe they'll bring back the Yellow alerts!
21 - Jude
ANOTHER RATHERGATE?
NOT.
22 - Heisod
Nope. The memos ar not fake.
23 - Dave Nalle
GloomRaven - the whole Democratic party should adopt your name. It's perfect for them. BTW, why waste money on an investigation when there's no possible outcome that makes any difference to anyone? Even with the worst possible outcome there's no crime, no impeachable offense and nothing anyone really cares about in the memos, so why bother?
>>Nope. The memos ar not fake.<<
Good point, Heisod (sic). They are typed on real paper, so they sure must be real. I think I'll type some 'real' memos of my own now.
Dave
24 - gonzo marx
Mr Nalle sez...
*GloomRaven - the whole Democratic party should adopt your name. It's perfect for them.*
does that mean that the GOP will change their name to "Greed Oriented Pigfuckers"??
sounds perfect to me..oh wait..i hafta figure out how to cram "Theocratic" into there...
but you get the Idea...
Excelsior!
25 - RJ
Name ONE Republican who fucks pigs! ;-)