What is Frist hiding?

R's are not smart enough to do a fraud. We learned that it takes at least a Dan Rather and a C BS staff.

I seriouisly doubt a Republican would admit to receiving this memo.

I seriously doubt a reporter who allegedly knows one did receive it would let that Senator lie, especially when that reporter's credibility is on the line.

Do people refer to Greg as "Mr. Garrison"? ;-)

The memo may have been a fake. That said, it does offer the best explanation for Congress's behavior. Can it be a forgery, but accurately portray the Republican postion at the same time? I think so.

Personally, I wanted to see Terri saved, and was rooting for her the whole way. But, as Josh noted here while the lawmaking process was going on, it's rather bizzare that Congress (driven primarily by Republicans) put so much effort, and so much money, into saving one near-brain-dead woman.

How many people had problems getting care due to lack of health insurance over the past week? Did Congress do anything to help them? Of course not. What was the difference? Probably everything detailed in that memo.

Thus, at least the memo offers some reasonable (if ethically questionable) explanations for the bizzare behaviour.

As I said on Hewitt's show last night, I don't doubt that politics motivated Congressmen at least in part. But I don't think they're stupid enough to write that in a memo that isn't even about talking points.

Want this story to get more coverage? Issue the following statement:

"What is in this memo is, in fact, what motivated us to fight for Terri. But we'd never be so STUPID as to actually ADMIT that these were our motives. Therefore it HAS TO BE a fake!"

If a high-ranking Republican came out with a statement like that, I bet this story would break all over the MSM.

This doesn't change any of the facts of the post, but it's not presented well in the original update, so I think it's worth noting;

While this specific controversy was noted on Kos's page, it wasn't actually posted by Kos. The article linked to was a Diary posted by one of the many, many diary writers at Kos's page; this one by a person named "Georgia10". It was not, however, promoted to the main page, which is usually the step required for a piece to be really endorsed by the Kos community. You can basically post anything you want in the Diaries, if you register with the page.

I think it's a mistake, therefore, to say things like "Kos leaves out the critically important TVC website which mirrors the alleged talking points", since Kos didn't write the piece.

Good point, I'll correct it.

Once again Joshua has it right. Like the Rather memo, once you get to style and content (leaving out the fonts, etc issues) the memo doesn't match what should be in the document. Talking points memos simply don't contain political strategy and implication statements. And, most real TPM's would get spelling and bill numbers right. The doc was a rush job, and the author never bothered to spell check or fact check (neither did MSM because ABC and WaPo missed the bill number error, and didn't think the typos might have called the document's authenticity into question).

Aaron,

are you trying to be funny or are you being Dan Rather serious. You argue that the memo might not be real, but it's still "accurate." That's just what Rather tried to say and it cost him his job. The media is supposed to report facts, not what they believe is true.

Does anybody find Frist's comment contradictory?
"I have never seen the memo, ... and I condemn the content of the memo."
How can you condemn something you haven't seen?

Anonymous--no, that's perfectly reasonable. Frist has undoubtedly been told (over and over?) by the press what's in the memo. The supposedly damning "great political issue" and "the pro-life base will be excited" lines, especially. You don't need to read it yourself to condemn those statements.