Thursday, April 07, 2005
More Right Wing Lies - the Propaganda Machine Oops
So that we get the facts straight……
ABC News and the Washington Post reported that Republicans were circulating a memo that claimed the Schiavo case was a "great political issue."
Senate Republican aides claimed to be familiar with the memo but declined to discuss it on the record and gave no information about its origin.
Sen. Robert F. Bennett, Utah Republican, said the issue "stinks" of a news fabrication similar to the one that engulfed CBS anchorman Dan Rather during the 2004 presidential campaign, after he reported that President Bush did not fulfill his duties while in the National Guard, citing documents that CBS later admitted could not be authenticated. "I've never seen it, and nobody ever gave it to me," Mr. Bennett said of the purported Schiavo memo, adding: "As far as I'm concerned, it is an invention of the press."
"Senator Martinez has never seen the memo and condemns its sentiments," spokeswoman Kerry Feehery said. "No one in our office has seen it, nor had anything to do with its creation."
A survey by The Washington Times found that every Republican said the memo was not crafted or distributed by him or her. Every one of them said he or she had not seen it until the memo was the subject of speculation in major news organs, particularly ABC News and The Washington Post.
Rush Limbaugh "reports" that the memo was forged by Democrats to discredit Republicans
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=%22Supposed+GOP+Schiavo+Memo+Forged+by+Democrats%22&btnG=Search+News
Washington Times Runs a story asking "Was the Schiavo memo a fake?"
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050406-124141-1831r.htm
On Chris Matthews on Sunday, at the end of the show when he asks, "Tell me something I don't know", Tucker Carlson said this:
"Last week a memo surfaced, reportedly written by the Republican members of Congress explaining how to make hay with the Terri Schiavo case, the Talking Points Memo, Ah, I think within a week or two it will become clear that that memo was a forgery, possibly written by Democrats on the hill in an effort to discredit Republicans. Bloggers are saying that now and it sounds like they may be right."
Conservative Blogger’s write that the liberal media has made the story up…
http://www.rathergate.com/
On Freerepublic.com they write:
Further, the content of the memo is highly suspicious. Why would anyone mix political strategy points--the ones the Democrats want to talk about--with talking points for Senatorial argument? A competent staffer preparing a talking points memo wouldn't do that, but a Democratic dirty trickster would.
Does this prove the memo is a fraud? Not at all. It is possible that somewhere in the House or Senate there is a Republican staffer dumb enough to have produced and circulated it. The question, though, is: what is the evidence that the memo is genuine? At this point, there is none. And, with all due respect to Mike Allen, "trust me" is no longer adequate proof.
UPDATE: Reader Kyle Kveton makes a rather astonishing point:
Why the "GOP Schiavo memo" is a fake: The Real S.529 is a bill introduced by Grassley on 3-3-05 to establish a US anti-doping agency. No competent staffer would create a talking points memo with the wrong S. number on it. He's right. Maybe there is an explanation. But the burden now is clearly on ABC and the Washington Post to explain why they are not the victims of a hoax.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1369175/posts
The Daily Standard writes:
To sum up, then: (1) The memo itself conveys no information about its source. (2) It is very poorly done, containing a number of typographical errors, failing to get the number of the Senate bill correct, and using points cribbed word-for-word from an advocacy group's website. (3) The politically controversial statements are out of place in a talking points memo, and seem, on the contrary, ideally framed to create talking points for the Democrats. (4) Somewhat bizarrely, after the contents of the memo had been reported, someone corrected those typographical errors--but only those errors that had been pointed out by ABC. (5) No one has reported seeing any Republican distributing the suspect memo; the only people confirmed to have passed out the memo were Democratic staffers.
A REASONABLE CONCLUSION would be that the "talking points memo" might be a fake, created by Democrats to cast aspersions on the motives of the Republican leadership. Every Republican who has been asked about the memo has denied knowing anything about it. Unless someone talks--at a minimum, identifying the Democratic aides who distributed the memo on March 17--we likely will never know who, exactly, created it.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/416virea.asp
Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in an interview Friday that he considered it "ludicrous" to suggest that his party created the document and said Republicans were using such talk to divert responsibility. "I guess the best defense is a good offense -- that's their theory," he said.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said he believed that the memo originated with the GOP because it is "totally consistent" with how the Republicans have operated for the past four years. "They just shouldn't lose their memos," he said.
The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night. Brian Darling, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said.
ABC News and the Washington Post reported that Republicans were circulating a memo that claimed the Schiavo case was a "great political issue."
Senate Republican aides claimed to be familiar with the memo but declined to discuss it on the record and gave no information about its origin.
Sen. Robert F. Bennett, Utah Republican, said the issue "stinks" of a news fabrication similar to the one that engulfed CBS anchorman Dan Rather during the 2004 presidential campaign, after he reported that President Bush did not fulfill his duties while in the National Guard, citing documents that CBS later admitted could not be authenticated. "I've never seen it, and nobody ever gave it to me," Mr. Bennett said of the purported Schiavo memo, adding: "As far as I'm concerned, it is an invention of the press."
"Senator Martinez has never seen the memo and condemns its sentiments," spokeswoman Kerry Feehery said. "No one in our office has seen it, nor had anything to do with its creation."
A survey by The Washington Times found that every Republican said the memo was not crafted or distributed by him or her. Every one of them said he or she had not seen it until the memo was the subject of speculation in major news organs, particularly ABC News and The Washington Post.
Rush Limbaugh "reports" that the memo was forged by Democrats to discredit Republicans
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=%22Supposed+GOP+Schiavo+Memo+Forged+by+Democrats%22&btnG=Search+News
Washington Times Runs a story asking "Was the Schiavo memo a fake?"
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050406-124141-1831r.htm
On Chris Matthews on Sunday, at the end of the show when he asks, "Tell me something I don't know", Tucker Carlson said this:
"Last week a memo surfaced, reportedly written by the Republican members of Congress explaining how to make hay with the Terri Schiavo case, the Talking Points Memo, Ah, I think within a week or two it will become clear that that memo was a forgery, possibly written by Democrats on the hill in an effort to discredit Republicans. Bloggers are saying that now and it sounds like they may be right."
Conservative Blogger’s write that the liberal media has made the story up…
http://www.rathergate.com/
On Freerepublic.com they write:
Further, the content of the memo is highly suspicious. Why would anyone mix political strategy points--the ones the Democrats want to talk about--with talking points for Senatorial argument? A competent staffer preparing a talking points memo wouldn't do that, but a Democratic dirty trickster would.
Does this prove the memo is a fraud? Not at all. It is possible that somewhere in the House or Senate there is a Republican staffer dumb enough to have produced and circulated it. The question, though, is: what is the evidence that the memo is genuine? At this point, there is none. And, with all due respect to Mike Allen, "trust me" is no longer adequate proof.
UPDATE: Reader Kyle Kveton makes a rather astonishing point:
Why the "GOP Schiavo memo" is a fake: The Real S.529 is a bill introduced by Grassley on 3-3-05 to establish a US anti-doping agency. No competent staffer would create a talking points memo with the wrong S. number on it. He's right. Maybe there is an explanation. But the burden now is clearly on ABC and the Washington Post to explain why they are not the victims of a hoax.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1369175/posts
The Daily Standard writes:
To sum up, then: (1) The memo itself conveys no information about its source. (2) It is very poorly done, containing a number of typographical errors, failing to get the number of the Senate bill correct, and using points cribbed word-for-word from an advocacy group's website. (3) The politically controversial statements are out of place in a talking points memo, and seem, on the contrary, ideally framed to create talking points for the Democrats. (4) Somewhat bizarrely, after the contents of the memo had been reported, someone corrected those typographical errors--but only those errors that had been pointed out by ABC. (5) No one has reported seeing any Republican distributing the suspect memo; the only people confirmed to have passed out the memo were Democratic staffers.
A REASONABLE CONCLUSION would be that the "talking points memo" might be a fake, created by Democrats to cast aspersions on the motives of the Republican leadership. Every Republican who has been asked about the memo has denied knowing anything about it. Unless someone talks--at a minimum, identifying the Democratic aides who distributed the memo on March 17--we likely will never know who, exactly, created it.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/416virea.asp
Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in an interview Friday that he considered it "ludicrous" to suggest that his party created the document and said Republicans were using such talk to divert responsibility. "I guess the best defense is a good offense -- that's their theory," he said.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said he believed that the memo originated with the GOP because it is "totally consistent" with how the Republicans have operated for the past four years. "They just shouldn't lose their memos," he said.
The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night. Brian Darling, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said.
# posted by The Punisher @ Thursday, April 07, 2005 
