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Schiavo talking points memo...fake?

Could they? Would they? After the CBS debacle would the elite main-stream media have the gaul to fabricate another document, only to run a story about it so that the Republicans look bad? Possibly.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20...4141-1831r.htm

Quote:

Was the Schiavo memo a fake?

By Brian DeBoseand Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

All 55 Republican senators say they have never seen the Terri Schiavo political talking-points memo that Democrats say was circulated among Republicans during the floor debate over whether the federal government should intervene to prolong her life.
A survey by The Washington Times found that every Republican said the memo was not crafted or distributed by him or her. Every one of them said he or she had not seen it until the memo was the subject of speculation in major news organs, particularly ABC News and The Washington Post.

Democrats said Republicans distributed the memo, and one Democratic official told The Post that a Republican senator gave it to a Democratic senator.
The Times surveyed all 44 Democrats and the chamber's one independent, and only one of them, Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, said through a spokeswoman that he saw it circulated on the Senate floor.
"He said that the memo was being circulated by Republican members on Thursday before we went out of session, and that is when he saw it," said his spokeswoman, Allison Dobson.
Two Democratic offices refused to respond — Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat — the latter even as he continued to accuse Republicans of being behind it.
"We will not participate in the survey. News outlets have investigated and authenticated the memo was real and came from Republican sources. We have no further comment," said spokeswoman Tessa Hafen. "If you want more information on the memo, you should work on finding the Republican who wrote it."
She did not respond to a request to name the newspaper or network that had "authenticated" the memorandum.
ABC News first reported on March 18 that talking points were circulated among Republican senators, and The Washington Post two days later called the document "an unsigned one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators."
Neither report cited its sources, but a later article in The Post quoted a Democratic Senate official saying, "The fact is, these talking points were given to a Democratic member by a Republican senator." That article and another in the New York Times said the memo was then given to reporters by Democratic aides.
Sen. Robert F. Bennett, Utah Republican, said the issue "stinks" of a news fabrication similar to the one that engulfed CBS anchorman Dan Rather during the 2004 presidential campaign, after he reported that President Bush did not fulfill his duties while in the National Guard, citing documents that CBS later admitted could not be authenticated.
"I've never seen it, and nobody ever gave it to me," Mr. Bennett said of the purported Schiavo memo, adding: "As far as I'm concerned, it is an invention of the press."
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat, has called for the Senate Rules and Administration Committee to investigate.
"Those who would attempt to influence debate in the United States Senate should not hide behind anonymous pieces of paper," he said in his March 23 letter asking for the inquiry.
Mr. Lautenberg said yesterday that he never saw the document on the floor. Staffers in his office said they got a copy of it from a Web site and passed on copies to the rules committee.
Sen. Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican and chairman of the rules committee, said yesterday that he would look into who, how and when the document was produced, although he is skeptical of the Democratic charges.
"We have not been able to find the source and I was on the floor the whole time until 10 o'clock that night and I never saw it," Mr. Lott said.
The Post, in a dispatch last week, cited a "Democratic Senate official" who said, "It's ridiculous to suggest that these are some talking points concocted by a Democratic staffer. The fact is, these talking points were given to a Democratic member by a Republican senator."
The memo has been cited repeatedly by columnists as evidence that Republicans were trying to exploit the dispute over Mrs. Schiavo, who died last week — 13 days after her feeding tube was removed. Some press reports also said the memo was distributed by Republican leaders — a notion the leadership offices strongly denied.
"In a nutshell, I can just simply tell you that no, we have nothing to do with that memo; no we have not seen that memo; we have nothing to do with circulating that memo," said Robert Traynham, spokesman for Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. "Senator Santorum had nothing to do with it. Neither did any member of his staff at the personal level or the leadership level."
Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, who is up for re-election next year, is specified in the memo as someone who could suffer political damage if he opposed saving Mrs. Schiavo.
Asked whether he'd seen the memo, Mr. Nelson said to talk to Mr. Harkin.
"Ask Senator Harkin. He saw it, and he told me about it because my name was on it," Mr. Nelson said.
Mr. Nelson's fellow Florida senator, Mel Martinez, a Republican, also has been the focus of some scrutiny in press accounts because passages of the disputed memo appear to have been lifted from a press release posted on his Senate Web site.
He denied any involvement.
"Senator Martinez has never seen the memo and condemns its sentiments," spokeswoman Kerry Feehery said. "No one in our office has seen it, nor had anything to do with its creation."
Joe Shoemaker, a spokesman for Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said in several conversations over three days that his boss saw the memo on the floor.
Asked independently, however, Mr. Durbin said he never saw it.
"No, I did not see it," he said. "I heard about it reported on the news."
Asked about the discrepancy, Mr. Shoemaker later said that the senator's floor staff thought he had seen it. The staffers saw a "gaggle" of senators standing around discussing a document during floor debate, and Mr. Durbin walked over to them.

So I guess the question is: Were 55 senators lying or was one senator mistaken? and another question: Is it authentic or was it a fabrication?

From what I"ve read, the memo was a fabrication created by Dem senatorial aides. From there, it just snowballed. Remember the exercise of lining up 20 people and whispering a message into the the first person';s ear and have them repeat it to the next and it ends up being something totally different? I believe that's what happened here. Just classic in the beltway politics.

this article is from the washington times, which is hardly a neutral source.

here's an interpreation from a non-rightwing viewpoint:

i think the memo could well be a fake, but one concocted and planted by the political cadres within the bush administration.
it smells of rove. put your face close to the screen and i am sure that you too will catch a bit of the fetid smell of karl rove.
the idea would be to turn the schiavo farce to some kind of advantage for the right--it has not done well in the press, it is one of those moments across which the more authoritarian elements of right ideology come to the fore. the discourse around the schiavo case has been really quite repellent, and the level of hypocrisy perhaps evident enough for even conservatives who supported this kind of display to sense, perhaps, a problem.

when you have a fiasco at the tactical level, you can always try to plant something like this. planting it would have at least three main advantages:
it would make the problem the "mainstream press" and not the craven exploitation of a sad and ultimately ridiculous situation by the right:
it would play to the right's beloved victimization narrative;
it would function, ideally, to trivialize and displace the problem the right's own actions have presented to it.

you could see in the rather farce something of a model, in fact, but not as conservatives would like:

think about it: the problems raised by cowboy george's glorious history during vietnam is not in doubt--it was a problem during an election cycle--it would not go away, despite the constant slander generated by republican operatives like the swift boat charlatans--so you concoct a "smoking gun" and plant it--then you reveal the fact of the fraud, but not the source--and presto macho the issue shifts from the fact of george w bush's record of exploiting wealthy family connections to avoid going to vietnam (and this not on the basis of anything approaching a principled objection to the war) to the press that relays these facts.
if you manufacture enough structured indignation from the loyal brownshirts of the right, you can perform a wholesale forest-for-the-trees switch.
and why not, it worked pretty well, didnt it?

i mean, as loathesome as i find karl rove, you have to hand it to the guy: he is slick, in an odious kinda way. all the move required, really, was control over how it was framed--a breakdown in fact checking at the tv network is simply grist for the mill. and given the nature of rightwing land, it would have been secondary had the breakdown actually occurred. what matters is the aggressiveness of the accusations that it did occur, and a spineless television network.

but dont you find anything strange in how focussed the conservative attacks on rather were? where did that focus come from? would you need a trail of directives to prove that there was a centrally directed focus on particular aspects of the rather farce?

so you have something parallel here--and why not, it worked pretty well for the rove people last time out.

sick thing about this is that the above is no more or less probable an interpretation than any of those that take this story seriously.

I think the memo was real, and was likely written by a staffer in a single senator's office. Since both parties do this kind of thing from time to time, senators weren't keen to claim it or comment on it. It seems that the memo was a sophomoric embarrassment to Republicans who wish it wasn't there, especially with the public backlash against the intervention of Congress. In true swiftboat fashion, the extreme right would love to create a discussion of anything but the obvious attributes of the memo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by meembo

I think the memo was real, and was likely written by a staffer in a single senator's office. Since both parties do this kind of thing from time to time, senators weren't keen to claim it or comment on it. It seems that the memo was a sophomoric embarrassment to Republicans who wish it wasn't there, especially with the public backlash against the intervention of Congress. In true swiftboat fashion, the extreme right would love to create a discussion of anything but the obvious attributes of the memo.

Kinda like Ted Kennedy's memo on blocking a vote for minority judges, when the story became not the contents of the memo, but instead, on how it was attained?

Ultimately who cares... They wouldn't be a very effective party if they weren't "all on the same page". These memos get everyone on the same page.

End of story.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

So.. we have an article citing research where actual, real live members of our government were intereviewed (and the resulting answers didnt quite add up to the stories on this memo already reported by the press)... and another which pulls wild assumptions out of thin air (pure paranoid speculation) and we're supposed to give them the same credibility? Im more skeptical than most I know about anything I hear/read from the media, but cmon.. you are quick to bash the washington times but dont even provide a source for your article. I realize the article was attempting to demonstrate unreasonable paranoia by being unreasonably paranoid, but doesnt address the fact that testimony from (many) real people doesnt coincide with the story the press reported earlier. Pretty weak.

As it stands I dont really care. No matter where this memo came from, the reaction it caused from both sides, just further demonstrates how bankrupt washington really is. I cant think of a single politician that has my trust at this point in time. How sad.

sprocket:

i didnt cite an article. that is why there is no citation. usually, a citation accompanies an article cited. that is how it generally works.
i presented what i did write as an equally plausible interpretation of the article as anything that preceded it.

as for the questionable status of the washington times, this should be obvious to anyone: owned by the unification church, faithful lackey of the contemporary extreme right in the general image of things moonie around the world. dont believe me? look it up for yourself.

as for the interpretation itself, i really am not concerned that you, sprocket, find it paranoid--what interests me more is that it is a plausible interpretation of this type of action. i think it explains the rather mess better than i imagine you would be able to. but go ahead and prove me wrong. i would prefer to be wrong on this, rather than find this kind of thing plausible. because so far as i can tell, there really is no limit to karl rove's willingness and ability instrumentalize just about anything.

Not sure this answer will satisfy anyone, but it looks as though the source has been identified:

Senator’s office produced Schiavo memo

Quote:

WASHINGTON - A one-page unsigned memo that became part of the debate preceding Congress’ vote ordering a federal court review of the Terri Schiavo case originated in Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez’ office, Martinez said Wednesday.

The memo — first reported by ABC News on March 18 and by The Washington Post and The Associated Press two days later — said the fight over removing Schiavo’s feeding tube “is a great political issue ... and a tough issue for Democrats.”

“This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue,” said the memo, which was described at the time as being circulated among Senate Republicans.

Martinez said in a written statement he discovered Wednesday that the memo had been written by an aide in his office. “It is with profound disappointment and regret that I learned today that a senior member of my staff was unilaterally responsible for this document,” Martinez said.

Staffer resigns
He said he accepted the resignation of the staffer, whom he did not identify, who drafted and circulated the memo. “This type of behavior and sentiment will not be tolerated in my office,” he said.

“Until this afternoon, I had never seen it and had no idea a copy of it had ever been in my possession,” Martinez said of the document. He had previously denied knowing anything about the memo and condemned its sentiments.

The memo had been disavowed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, both primary forces behind Congress passing the bill and sending it to President Bush on March 21.

Democrats had pounced on the document as evidence that Republicans were seeking a political advantage in the fight between Schiavo’s husband and her parents over removing her feeding tube 15 years after she incurred severe brain damage that left her incapacitated.

Schiavo, 41, died last Thursday in a Florida hospice, 13 days after the feeding tube was removed. During the interim, federal courts repeatedly rejected what Republicans said was the intent of the bill: to have the tube reinserted and prolong Schiavo’s life.

Martinez, in his statement, said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, had asked for background information on the bill ordering a federal court to review the Schiavo case.

Apologizes to Sen. Nelson
He said he pulled a one-page document from his coat pocket and handed to Harkin. “Unbeknownst to me ... I had given him a copy of the now infamous memo.”

He said Harkin had called him earlier Wednesday to say he believes the memo had been given to him by Martinez. The Florida senator said he then ordered an internal investigation in his office.

Allison Dobson, a spokeswoman for Harkin, said the Iowa Democrat had received the memo from Martinez in the days leading up to passage of the bill.

Martinez said he also had apologized to Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who is up for re-election in 2006 and was cited in the memo because he had declined to become a sponsor of the bill.

I very seldom get to toot my own horn, but I will this time -- see #4 in the thread above. And thanks to the one who pointed this out to me -- you know who you are!

Quote:

Originally Posted by meembo

I very seldom get to toot my own horn, but I will this time -- see #4 in the thread above. And thanks to the one who pointed this out to me -- you know who you are!

:thumbsup:

i am pleased that my take this particular memo turned out to be wrong.

the question now should be, did the legal aide resign because he made a mistake, or because he screwed the GOP out of a talking point?

Quote:

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

the question now should be, did the legal aide resign because he made a mistake, or because he screwed the GOP out of a talking point?

the real tragedy of this kind of political monkeybusiness is that otherwise good people fall on their swords out of respect for the structure of command. It's very shameful, in my opinion, that a memo that was likely circulated and agreed upon by the congresspersons who read and really were attempting to accumulate political capital from this situation, would then disavow any knowledge of it and slough responsibility onto a minor character in the overall governance structure.

So the focus has shifted from a political majority trying to seize more capital from a powerful and personal tragedy to an errant subordinate.

This is analogous to the intelligence fiasco where a bunch of people resigned, although now they are being vindicated. But no one's responsible. OK.

So, just to sum up, the memo was real. Not created by the Democrats, not faked, as some, such as the prestigious Washington Times have suggested. Think they'll print a retraction and apology? Think others will? I doubt it...

What's even more interesting is that, if you look at the Washington Times article, Martinez's office lied about this at first:

Quote:

Mr. Nelson's fellow Florida senator, Mel Martinez, a Republican, also has been the focus of some scrutiny in press accounts because passages of the disputed memo appear to have been lifted from a press release posted on his Senate Web site.
He denied any involvement.
"Senator Martinez has never seen the memo and condemns its sentiments," spokeswoman Kerry Feehery said. "No one in our office has seen it, nor had anything to do with its creation."

well, it's the washington times....

curious that there is no brouhaha from the right about fact-checking and journalists' ethics over stuff like this when it involves a conservative rag, isnt it?

well maybe not: such critiques extended into the conservative press would cause real problems: better to restrict the question of ethics (journalistic and otherwise) to other positions.
they should be ethical.
we demonstrate our ethics by talking about how others should be ethical. that dispenses with the question of ethics.
apparently this is how the matter goes in that strange little world.

So the thing was real but somehow the WT still lied?

A second ago you all were saying the thing was fake.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Codename47

So the thing was real but somehow the WT still lied?

A second ago you all were saying the thing was fake.

I'll use small words.

The Washington Times said the memo was fake. It wasn't. The Washington Times lied.

Sorry, Washington is somewhat of a big word.

Yep, the silence was deafening among the right-wingers once the authenticity of the memo was established.