Friday, May 24, 2013

DNC: Republicans Doctored Emails and Are Making Up These Scandals or Something

Katie Pavlich


Friday afternoon, the Democratic National Committee sent out an official email accusing Republicans of "making up so-called scandals," doctoring emails and stirring up "false rumors" about White House cover-ups.
Friend -- 
Getting in President Obama's way has been the top priority for Republicans in Congress since day one. But now they've gone too far. 
They've been caught red-handed making up so-called 'scandals' out of thin air to stir up false rumors of vast 'cover-ups' happening in the White House. 
Did they find a single shred of evidence to back up their outrageous claims? No. 
But rather than let the truth stand in their way, Republicans actually doctored emails between administration officials about Benghazi. Then, they released them to the press, trying to pass them off as real in order to create their scandal. Fortunately, they got caught in the act when the White House released all of the actual emails. 
Tell President Obama you've got his back right now, no matter what Republicans come up with next. 
While Republican leaders were focused on stirring up controversy, Michele Bachmann was talking about impeaching President Obama for absolutely no reason, and Republicans in the House voted to repeal Obamacare -- for the 37th time. 
That's how they think they should be spending their time and your money. 
Make sure the President knows that you stand behind him and his agenda right now -- and that you won't let Republican games distract you from advocating for real change that will benefit all Americans. 
Stand with President Obama today -- and send the message to Republicans that it's time to stop playing political games and get back to work for the American people:
http://my.democrats.org/Stand-With-The-President 
Its time for them to do their damn jobs. 
Thanks,
Brad 
Brad Woodhouse
Communications Director
Democratic National Committee
As a reminder, the Washington Post fact checker gave White House Communications Director Dan Pfieffer three Pinnochios for making these very claims on the Sunday shows last weekend.
It has long been part of the Washington game for officials to discredit a news story by playing up errors in a relatively small part of it. Pfeiffer gives the impression that GOP operatives deliberately tried to “smear the president” with false, doctored e-mails. 
But the reporters involved have indicated they were told by their sources that these were summaries, taken from notes of e-mails that could not be kept. The fact that slightly different versions of the e-mails were reported by different journalists suggests there were different note-takers as well. 
Indeed, Republicans would have been foolish to seriously doctor e-mails that the White House at any moment could have released (and eventually did). Clearly, of course, Republicans would put their own spin on what the e-mails meant, as they did in the House report. Given that the e-mails were almost certain to leak once they were sent to Capitol Hill, it’s a wonder the White House did not proactively release them earlier. 
The burden of proof lies with the accuser. Despite Pfeiffer’s claim of political skullduggery, we see little evidence that much was at play here besides imprecise wordsmithing or editing errors by journalists.