Michael Isikoff, writing for Newsweek again uses unnamed sources to lob an attack against Bush and his Administration.
Two senior British government officials today acknowledged as authentic a series of 2002 pre-Iraq war memos stating that Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program was "effectively frozen" and that there was "no recent evidence" of Iraqi ties to international terrorism—private conclusions that contradicted two key pillars of the Bush administration's public case for the invasion in March 2003.
Of course he is referring to the new cause celebre among Democrats; the Downing Street Memos. But it turns out, that like the CBS document purporting to show that the President was AWOL for his National Guard service, there are no originals. They have been destroyed. All that remains are copies. And they are not even exact copies, they are "copies" that were retyped by the reporter.
With Times of London reporter Michael Smith admitting the memos he used in his stories are not originals, but copies he retyped, the controversy seems to be reaching a fever pitch.
"Until tonight ... no one questioned the authenticity of the documents provided by the Times of London," said CaptainsQuartersBlog, one of the sites behind the Rather scandal. "That has now changed, as Times reporter Michael Smith admitted that the memos he used are not originals, but retyped copies.
(Ed's original post is here.)
So the reporter had the originals which would prove the documents authentic, but instead he retyped them then destroyed them. Huh. Why?
Smith told the Associated Press he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals. The AP showed the documents to an unnamed senior British official who said they "appeared authentic."
Oh. Of course. Perfectly natural.
Unfortunately we only have his word for this.
Oh, and Mr Isikoff's two (count 'em; two!) unnamed sources who claim they're true.
If all of this sounds familiar, well, that would be because it is familiar. All that need to happen to complete the trifecta is for someone to claim that the documents may be false, but the story is true.
Sure.
Strangely, the Memos aren't all that damning to begin with. So why would the reporter go through all the trouble of retyping them on an old manual typewriter and then using further methods to make them appear older than they were?
Got me. But I do know that even though there is little damning in the memos, they have gotten the Left in a tizzy. Perhaps they figure no one will read them and they can frame the story any way they like. Fake follows fake, I suppose.
Or maybe.....
It was Karl Rove....
That devil.