Weekly Standard:It wasn't a Fake-Shiavo(a weak-ass retraction &blames aid)

[Robbien]

Goes through the whole story but says nothing about the smear campaign against the Democrats just that

The third possibility is that the memo is a Democratic dirty trick. At the moment, that looks most likely.

That was a reasonable inference from the facts that were then available, but it turned out to be wrong. On the other hand, our conviction that "In any event, . . . the suggestion that this is some kind of high-level Republican strategy memo is ludicrous" was borne out in the end.

<snip>

The Democrats were thus not guilty, as many of us believed, of creating the memo as a dirty trick. The central claim of many Democrats, newspapers, and commentators--that the memo was the product of the Republican congressional leadership and constituted an official "GOP talking points memo"--has likewise been proved false. It was this characterization that justified the memo's use as an indictment of congressional Republicans' motives in the Schiavo case. If the memo had been correctly described from the beginning, as the inept product of a freshman senator's aide, with no responsibility for Republican political strategy, which may not have been read by a single Republican senator, it is questionable whether it would even have merited a news story.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/462ibzoo.asp?pg=1

[Wickerman]

1. that is spin to a new art form!

[peacetalksforall]

2. Their attempts at dis-reality can be ranked from 1 to 10...this is a 1 -

meaning it barely makes the chart for clever dis-reality. It is unimaginative and the author should have some dollars subtracted from his check. Booooooo! Thumbs down. Lame.

[rocktivity]

3. The Dems proved their case; the Repubs didn't!

...The central claim of many Democrats, newspapers, and commentators--that the memo was the product of the Republican congressional leadership and constituted an official "GOP talking points memo"--has likewise been proved false.
Not so fast , buster--Proved false HOW? If this is a reference to the fact that all the Repub Senators denied they received a memo when the Washington post called, you can't pretend that it's equally possible that they lied to avoid incriminating themselves (not to mention whoever gave the memo to them). And in case you didn't know, the talking points were used at least three times.

If the memo had been correctly described...as the inept product of a freshman senator's aide, with no responsibility for Republican political strategy...it is questionable whether it would even have merited a news story.
The "aide" was not a college intern, it was Martinez' LAWYER, for chrissakes. And between the aide claiming that he doesn't know how the memo got printed; and Martinez claiming that he doesn't know how the memo got into his pocket though he TOLD Harking they were talking points, I think there's plenty of grounds on which to consider this a news story.

The botton line is, the DEM side of the story turned out to be true, the Repub side didn't. And now you have the nerve to try to act shocked--SHOCKED that anyone would leak a story in the first place!

:headbang:
rocknation

[gratuitous]

4. Is a lobotomy a job requirement at the Weakly Standard?

Let's see, the memo was generated by the Republicans, who promptly used it as their template to pump up the Mighty Republican Wurlitzer and pass an unprecedented piece of legislation, going so far as to recall Chimpy from another one of his interminable vacations, and the media echo chamber spent three weeks telling us how deeply divided the country was over the whole Schiavo episode (yeah, 82-18 is a REAL deep divide).

Now, when the issue blew up in their faces and they're standing there looking like Wile E. Coyote, the Standard has the nerve to say that the Democrats are equally culpable because . . . the scurrilous bit of demagoguery that started it all was not an "official" GOP talking points memo.

I smell bullshit!

[Gothmog]

5. Idiots are just embarrassed that they were proved wrong

The poor idiots on the conservative blogs are embarrassed that they were proven wrong. Darling was not a low level staffer.