At the bottom of a column published at 7:31 am this morning, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz downplays the Schiavo memo controversy:

Powerline[,] which played a role in exposing CBS’s National Guard memos, is wondering about the Republican strategy memo that, oddly enough, fails to list an author:

“Confirming what we reported, ABC News has admitted that it knows nothing about the origins of the ‘GOP talking points’ memo that it first published. An ABC source writes:

“the memo discussed a republican bill and was distributed to repulbican senators. That’s what we reported. we are obviously not going to divulge our multiple sources. I appeciate your questions, but believe you are approaching this from the wrong end. We asked numerous sources — all confirmed that senators had received the memo in conjunction with one of the bills on the floor. For three days none of those sources has given us any reason to think there is more to the memo than a particularly naked expression of the politics of Shivo case.

“Try to ignore the spelling. ABC first reported the memo as a bombshell that disclosed Republican strategy. Now it says that the memo ‘discussed a republican bill’ and was ‘distributed to [some] repulbican [sic] senators.’ Whatever ABC may think of the ‘politics of the Shivo [sic] case,’ the network admits that it knows nothing about who authored and distributed the memo.

“UPDATE: I should have made clear that this email wasn’t sent to me, I got it from another blogger who has had extensive communication with ABC on this topic.”

Maybe the Powerline gang is right. But knocking down an unsigned memo by reporting an unsigned e-mail?

Well, well, well. Where to start?

First, note that Kurtz repeats the assertion that the unsigned document is a “Republican strategy memo” despite there being no evidence that the memo was either written or circulated by Republicans.

Second, Kurtz mentions that the memo did not contain an author but does not mention that the memo was written on plain paper with no letterhead or that the memo misstated the bill number of the Schiavo legislation–pertinent facts that most Post readers probably are not aware of.

Third, Kurtz fails to mention the role played by his employer, the Post. As I noted here, the Post strongly implied that Republicans were responsible for the memo–an accusation that some ABC News officials are now saying their reporter never made.

Fourth, Kurtz attacks Power Line for “knocking down an unsigned memo by reporting an unsigned e-mail.” John Hinderaker of Power Line raised serious questions about the memo well before he cited the anonymous e-mail from ABC News (see here, here, here, and here). So did Josh Claybourn of In the Agora. Kurtz makes it seems as if the unsigned ABC News e-mail is integral to the argument made by Power Line et al. when in fact it is peripheral.

Of course, the only reason Power Line had to cite an unnamed ABC News official is because ABC News won’t issue an official statement about the matter. Kerry Marash, VP of Editorial Quality for ABC News, and White House correspondent Kate Snow, who said on Good Morning America that the memo was circulated by Senate Republicans, have not returned calls seeking comment.

Fifth, Kurtz concedes that Power Line may be right but fails to include any new information that would shed light on this. It wouldn’t take much. All Kurtz has to do is ask ABC News and his colleagues at the Post whether their sources told them the memo was written or circulated by Republicans. Unfortunately, it appears that Kurtz (perhaps mindful of who signs his paycheck) didn’t even bother to ask these basic questions.

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Kudos, by the way, to Power Line for predicting Kurtz’s reticence on this story. Fred Barnes’ take on the Schiavo memo is here.

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Previous:

Another fishy memo
Did the MSM learn nothing from Rathergate?
MSM ignores Schiavo memo story
Kurtz keeps quiet

Update: Hinderaker weighs in here. He notes that the ABC News official’s e-mail was in fact signed. Hinderaker didn’t dislose the ABC employee’s name because he didn’t have permission to do so.

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