Reply #68: What POWERLIE said [View All]

[johnfunk]

Courtesy AmericaBlog:

We have written extensively about the fake "talking points memo" on the Schaivo case that ABC News and the Washington Post publicized, beginning on March 18. We have pointed out, most comprehensively in the Weekly Standard, that there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the memo originated with the Republicans, and considerable reason to think it may be a Democratic dirty trick....

There is a story here, if our media wanted to pursue it. The memo in question is a pathetic piece of work. Any competent person could look at it and see that it is not a product of the Republican leadership. It is on a blank piece of paper; no letterhead, no signature, no identification. Anyone in the world could have typed it. It is incompetently produced: it gets the Senate bill number wrong, misspells Terri Schiavo's name, and is full of typographical errors. The only people reported to have distributed it (by the New York Times) were Democratic staffers. And--most fundamentally--it is absurd to think that the Republican leadership would produce a "talking points" memo discussing what great politics the Schiavo case was for Republicans. Those aren't talking points; not for Republicans, anyway. The memo benefited the only party that it could possibly have benefited: the Democrats.

If there were investigative reporters working for the Washington Post, ABC, the New York Times, or any other major news organization, they might want to try to find out where the memo came from. Circumstantially, it seems extremely likely that it was produced by Democrats as a political dirty trick.

But such investigation seems to be beyond the capability--more important, beyond the ambition--of our mainstream press. Only bloggers look critically at documents that cast disrepute on Republicans. Mainstream reporters accept them uncritically, at face value, no matter how inept they may be. Why is this?

Sunday morning, I'll be on Howard Kurtz's CNN television program, "Reliable Sources," to discuss the "talking points memo." It will be interesting to see whether Kurtz tries to defend his paper's handling of the issue.

UPDATE: A reader points out that the Post's original story on the fake memo, which went out, apparently, on March 19, also included this paragraph:

Republican officials declared, in a memo that was supposed to be seen only by senators, that they believe the Schiavo case "is a great political issue" that could pay dividends with Christian conservatives, whose support is essential in midterm elections such as those coming up in 2006.

Someone at the Post swallowed the fake memo hook, line, and sinker--Mike Allen, I assume. Someone else at the Post apparently realized that the paper lacked facts to back up its accusations. I've written Allen to see what he has to say about these events.

My, my, my -- it looks like Assrocket has some 'splainin' to do to the rubes who actually believe the nonsense posted to POWERLIE

BONUS! Here's what Mickey Malkin Maglalang said:

I suspect that no one at the Post or ABC News still believes the amateurish, unsigned, misspelled memo was circulated by Republican Party leaders..... Will ABC News officials continue to stonewall, as Dan Rather et al. so famously did just a few months ago? Or will they come clean and promptly issue a orrection? What about the Washington Post, which strongly implied in this article that Republicans were responsible for the memo? And what about all the other pundits, from Chris Matthews to Cynthia Tucker, ho stated explicitly that Republicans distributed the memo--a statement that an anonymous ABC News official now says ABC News never eported? You would think the MSM learned something from RatherGate. Apparently not.

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ON EDIT: Had to add that "glamour" shot of Maglalang!