Downing Street Memos -- Fake but ....er ... Fake

Evidently, the established media have learned absolutely nothing from Dan Rather's memogate nonsense. Captain Ed points out what should be obvious to anyone,

"...a lack of protest from Downing Street after being asked to authenticate retyped copies of alleged minutes of secret meetings does NOT constitute verification. The same exact argument came up with the Killian memos in Rathergate and the Newsweek Qu'ran-flushing report last month. In both cases, the documents or sources turned out to be fakes. It's the reporters' job to provide verification, not simply a demurral by officials to opine on their authenticity. If that isn't obvious, then centuries of evidentiary procedure in American and English common law have gone for naught, as well as traditions of journalistic responsibility and professionalism. After all, this argument just means that reporters can type out anything they like and the burden of proof shifts from the accuser to the accused in proving them false..."

and he does a great job of breaking down the fake but useful Downing Street Memos story, the same Downing Street Memos so recently used by certain politicians in D.C., including Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), and Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), to further demonize President Bush and stage mock impeachment hearings. In all, more than 10% of the Democrats in Congress in attendance. Former ambassador and well-known liar Joseph C. Wilson was also present at these hearings as a witness. (You may recall how Wilson's anti-Bush lie-filled book was promoted shamelessly by CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and the NYT. When it was proven that Wilson was full of shit, not a peep was heard from our trusty gatekeepers of truth.)

These same memos by the way have been used as the basis for front page stories in newspapers all across the country this week, all of them based on fake documents. Again!