No Bias Here? - Downing Street Memos "Fake but Accurate"

Our friends on the left have adopted and defended new tactics to attack the President--and they continue to do so with more "fake but accurate" memos on the Iraq War. I bet this comes as a big shock.

Here's more about this from "Captain's Quarters."

The media and the Leftists have had a field day with the Downing Street memos that they claim imply that the Bush administration lied about the intelligence on WMD in order to justify the attack on Iraq. Despite the fact that none of the memos actually say that, none of them quote any officials or any documents, and that the text of the memos show that the British government worried about the deployment of WMD by Saddam against Coalition troops, Kuwait and/or Israel, the meme continues to survive.

Until tonight, however, no one questioned the authenticity of the documents provided by the Times of London. That has now changed, as Times reporter Michael Smith admitted that the memos he used are not originals, but retyped copies (via LGF and CQ reader Sapper): [Also Associated Press]

The eight memos � all labeled "secret" or "confidential" � were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times. Smith told AP 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.

How unfortunate that the very memos that were supposed to prove that "Bush lied" were destroyed by the person indicting him. Do you know what? To the Bush haters, this new information will not make one little difference.

If Bush is lying then why does the press have to manufacture documents to that effect rather than produce authentic ones from the volumes that they believe exist? To me, it's just another nail in the coffin of the credibility of mass media. That doesn't make me happy, either; but, it does open the door to journalists who value accuracy and ethics. I hope more turn up--and soon.