So, the memos, are they real? Or are they fake….
What we’re referring to are the memos uncovered by 60 Minutes so gleefully and immediately attacked by the right…and by that I mean the Weekly Standard.
Turns out that the group behind the press release that brought up the allegations of fraud has done work for….Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Hmm.
Creative Response Concepts, run by Pat Buchanan’s former press secretary, is the group responsible for the news release that alerted major media to the possiblity of forgery. They do work for the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee. Its client list also includes the Christian Coalition, National Taxpayers Union, Media Research Council and Regnery Publishing. As is pointed out in the link below, Regnery Publishing put out “Unfit for Command.”
As has been pointed out in other sources , the possiblity of a typewriter or word processor writing these memos is clearly present. The fact that the right would prefer to obscure their validity with a tarnish of untruth is classic right-wing smear and withdraw tactics.
Eric Boehlert at Salon.com does a great job drawing the connections but I won’t hyperlink the article since it requires subscription, not just registration to read. You can go to Salon.com and read it after watching an ad. The link is below.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/10/forgery/index.html
This is frankly outrageous. No one has officially disputed their validity. All sources who think that this is a fake have done nothing but read the documents off a website. All those who have seen the originals contend they’re authentic.
Until proven wrong, this is all just the standard smoke and mirrors.