Fake memos and the MSM - Round 2

[Boris Godunov]

The fact that the TPs were copied from conservative sites only shows that they were copied from conservative sites, not that the memo isn't authentic. It could just mean that a lazy staffer found a premade litany of things to include that fit the bill and stuck it in the memo. Happens all the time, and saves a lot of trouble. That would be consistent with there being typos and such, as it would indicate the memo was dashed off in a hurry with typos and the like. It's certainly possible.

I don't see why ABC should be criticized in this manner, however. They got the memo, said where they got it from, and then asked the people who were supposedly behind it where it came from. They all said they hadn't seen it before. At no point did ABC say, "hey, we KNOW this came from you...admit it!"

[Drake Tungsten]

ABC should never have called it a GOP memo if they couldn't prove it came from the GOP. It's dishonest, sloppy journalism...

[Admiral]

So, I hate to revive dead threads, but upon reading the article below, my thoughts turned inexorably to this thead.

Schiavo Memo Is Attributed to Senate Aide
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: April 7, 2005

WASHINGTON, April 6 - Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, said Wednesday that a senior member of his staff had written an unsigned memorandum about the partisan political advantages of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo that became a controversial footnote to the debate over the wisdom and motives of Congress's actions.

In a statement on Wednesday night, Mr. Martinez said that he had just learned that the memorandum originated in his office and that its author had resigned. He did not name the author, but aides said it was Brian Darling, his counsel.

Mr. Darling could not be reached for comment.

"It is with profound disappointment and regret that I learned today that a senior member of my staff was unilaterally responsible for this document," Mr. Martinez said. "It was not approved by me or any other member of my staff, nor were we aware of its existence until very recently."

Mr. Martinez added: "This type of behavior and sentiment will not be tolerated in my office. As the senator, I am ultimately responsible for the work of my staff and the product that comes out of this office. I take full responsibility for this situation."

The anonymous memorandum, which was distributed to news organizations by Democratic aides and first reported by ABC News, became widely cited in news reports as evidence that at least some Republicans were applying a political calculus to the case of Ms. Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman. Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, and many other Republican Senators quickly disavowed the document, saying they had never seen it and that they condemned it.

In his statement, Mr. Martinez said that on March 9 he had mistakenly and unknowingly handed the document to Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, on the floor of the Senate. Mr. Martinez said that he had meant to reach for a different document and that he did not know how it had entered his possession.

"Senator Harkin was kind enough today to call me and tell me this afternoon that he believes the memo he received was given to him by me," Mr. Martinez said. "Until this afternoon, I had never seen it and had no idea a copy of it had ever been in my possession."

[Boris Godunov]

Haha, I was right. It was a lazy staffer.

[ixnay]

[Ramo]

Evil pinko liburl MSM pwned Drake and the Weekly Standard.

[Drake Tungsten]

How am I pwned? ABC was still wrong to run their original story attributing the memo to the "GOP" and Republican "party leaders"; this news, if accurate, reinforces that.

[Dinner]

Your pwned because you keep repeating these baseless Rush Limbaugh like claims that the memo was fake. Republicans got caught red handed; that isn't a new thing and it won't be the last time. Just accept it and move on.

[Drake Tungsten]

Leave the hackery to the veterans, Oerdin...

[RGBVideo]

Can't we just ban people like Drake? I'm getting tired of this crap: these trolls and these lies are wasting my time since I accidentally click them when they're on the first page of OT, thinking that there might be something useful in a thread title I don't understand... what I get is more irrelevant garbage which Drake has taken from his ass... It's so obvious that he knows even himself he's bull****ting us that it isn't even funny anymore.

Wasting my time with this crap

[Drake Tungsten]

Wasting my time with this crap

Likewise. If you can't follow a thread well enough to realize I'm neither lying nor bull****ting, then don't waste my time by pointlessly *****ing in my thread.

[Ramo]

How am I pwned?

On ABC was still wrong to run their original story attributing the memo to the "GOP" and Republican "party leaders"; this news, if accurate, reinforces that.[/q]

So the legal counsel to Martinez (with connections to DeLay, oddly enough) is a Democrat?

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7411079/

The only thing that you might be able to call ABC on is the "party leader," thing, and one could easily argue that the Republican Senator from Florida is a party leader on Schiavo-related matters. Evidently, his talking points have spread far and wide.

But the idea that this was a "political dirty trick" has shown itself to be horse****.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ramo


horse****.

Aaahhh, the wonder Republican bulk diet item.

Unfortunately it appears to cause projectile regurgitation in some ingesters...

[Drake Tungsten]

But the idea that this was a "political dirty trick" has shown itself to be horse****.

Well, the idea that the memo was a dirty trick was always put forward as a mere possibility. ABC and the WaPo are lucky that has not turned out to be the case, but there are still plenty of problems with their coverage of this story. I think Mickey Kaus sums it up pretty well...

Non-fake but inaccurate! WaPo's Mike Allen reports that the now-famous Schiavo "talking points" memo came from freshman GOP senator Mel Martinez's office. So that mystery is cleared up. The memo wasn't a fake. But Allen doesn't come off looking too good in this latest account. a) The memo was apparently not "distributed to Republican Senators by party leaders," as Allen's initial story, sent out through the Post news service to other papers, reported. It was--at least judging from today's account--handed to one Democratic senator, Tom Harkin, by one freshman Republican senator (who isn't in the party leadership); b) Allen doesn't explain why he told Howie Kurtz he "did not call them talking points or a Republican memo" when he had in fact done just that in the news service draft; c) Even the later, more "carefully worded" account Allen published in the Post itself was apparently wrong. Allen wrote

In a memo distributed only to Republican senators, the Schiavo case was characterized as "a great political issue" ...

This is almost the reverse of what Allen now reports. We know the memo was distributed to at least one Democratic senator. We don't know whether it was distributed to any Republican senator other then the senator whose staffer wrote it (although it's hard to believe it wasn't given to at least some other GOP lawmakers). Allen's story left the now-unsupported impression that Republican senators were conspiratorially reading the memo amongst themselves; d) The whole "memo" fuss, as played up by WaPo and ABC's Linda Douglass, was wildly overdone even if the memo was a GOP leadership document--as if senators never consider what is a good political issue, as if that's a no-no in a democracy. (Phoning Martin Luther King Jr. in jail was a "good political issue" for Sen. John Kennedy--and if you were trying to convince him to make the call that's something you'd have pointed out!) But certainly whatever legitimate valence Allen's 'memo' story had depended almost entirely on the impression that the memo revealed and represented the strategy of the GOP leaders who pushed the Schiavo bill. If all that was involved was a staff memo Martinez gave to Harkin, Allen's story was way out of whack. The memo wasn't close to being worth the play it got in WaPo or in Douglass' report. (It's not worth the current Senate investigation either. What's the crime--politicians considering politics?

http://slate.msn.com/id/2116317/

[Ramo]

Oh man. Did Kaus just compare the Schiavo matter with Georgia tossing MLK into jail for a minor traffic violation after all-white juries failed to convict on two other charges? That's just surreal.