[Mo1]

FYI

[Luigi Vasellini]

Pretty sleuth-like!!!

[mystery-ak]

Great sleuthing, Doc.....

[NeoCaveman]

Woah.

[Reactionary]

It sure looks like an official seal to me, which brings up the question as to the legitimacy of the entire story.

After all, if the document was "retyped" it wouldn't have been done on official stationary. If the document was going to be passed off as legitimate, it stands to reason that the official seal would have been forged as well.

[Lovebloggers]

Yeah how could he have typed the seal? makes less sense everyday.

[tiredoflaundry]

bumpity bump!

[Petronski]

VERY eenteresting.

[Fred Nerks]

could lead to something very interesting...

[NewMediaFan]

Yes we must get Dan Blather and his crack team at 60 Minutes to investigate this.

[dead]

I like the goofy glasses highlight on Secret and Prime Minister.

It looks like a still from Court TV's "Forensic Files".

[Steely Tom]

Any idea as to the significance of the shadow of a pair of eyeglasses? Which, by the way, anyone with a working knowledge of optics can tell are fake.

(steely)

[expatpat]

The seal may be the seal/letterhead of an organization he works for -- they are big on that kind of thing over there.

[CyberAnt]

Today on Rush .. he was discussing the name of Michael Smith and Rush was questioning whether or not there was a Michael Smith who worked with Mary Mapes in Texas. I think Rush established that there is such a person who had some connection to Burkett .. but Rush is investigating whether or not it's the same Michael Smith involved with this story.

And .. it is really the DOWNING STREET MINUTES - it's not a memo. It's the minutes from a meeting.

[postaldave]

what i find funny is that lack of interest in the fact that this might(IS) just be another fake. it would seem Conservatives just expect fraud and fakes now. should we at this time bring up all those senators who had the downing street memo impeach bush meeting on treason charges? one would think you would vet such things before calling for the head of a country. probably not, same old dumb nice guys.

[TheForceOfOne]

It says "Secret" above the seal but I can't make out what appears to be three letters on the seal itself.

[RGSpincich]

Got a real memo from HERE

Maybe the secret memos are different.

[Lovebloggers]

Actually now that I think about it I am sure Michael Smith was provided with blank letterhead from Downing Street as opposed to actual documents -- much easier that way to type up anything he needs.

One size fits all type of deal.

[ReignOfError]

Yeah, and plain paper doesn't usually have diffuse shadows of eyeglass frames on it. And rarely is part of the page crisp and the other rest blurry. No one uses courier any more. Etc. If the seal was the only thing you noticed, you have a particularly narrow form of tunnel vision.

It's a graphic. It's an illustration. The fact that it's labeled a "photo" indicates that something is dicey wth the way Reuters labels its images or the way Yahoo reads the labels. If you want to read some kind of conspiracy into that, knock yourself out.

[SevenofNine]

OFFF COURSE Dr Raoul go for it

Smack around BBC LOL!

[Texas Eagle]

I hereby nominate Doctor Raoul to be an Honorary Buckhead entitling him to all the perqs and privileges and television interviews that come with it and all that jazz.

[Congressman Billybob]

Tell Powerline about your find, asap. They are the ones who made Buckhead famous. But I don't think you'll get as famous as him. LOL.

John / Billybob

[tubebender]

Any comments on this...

[SmithL]

I got the very same seal on a message offering me great rewards for my participation in a discreet scheme to transfer funds into the Country, via my Credit Union account.

[Texas Eagle]

British "reporter" Michael Smith has told Asociated Press that he copied the original on plain paper and then destroyed the originals.

Nuh-uhhhhhh.

[Bushbacker1]

Looks like another Dan Blather wannabe!

[Billthedrill]

Doc, you're already famous. See Here.

This is, however, a very interesting development. The fellow's story gets a bit more stretched by the hour - he claims to have tried to "protect his source" by destroying the originals after having his legal secretary retype them...on plain paper...on an old typewriter. Why? And now they have a seal. The story stinks like a mackerel that's been dead for three days in the hot Louisiana sun.

[woofie]

[King Prout]

please keep us posted on where you go with this, DR

[woofie]

Secret Seal

Bobby Seale

[SkyPilot]

[TheForceOfOne]

Anyone having any luck with those letters on the AP picture of the seal?

[kaehurowing]

Wel, well, well. How interesting. No matter where I look, the only pictures of the supposed Downing Street memos are this Reuters "eyeglasses" shot, which shows virtually nothing.

Perhaps the media doesn't want the pajamahadeen looking too carefully at the actual document, giving the Rathergate fraud.

[gonzo]

We really have to stop meeting like this, Doc.............FRegards

[Lancey Howard]

Good job pointing out the seal. Like Freeper 'Motherbear' asked, "Why the seal if he wasn't trying to pass it off as a copy of the real thing?"

When I first heard that this reporter scrounged up an "old-fashioned typewriter" to "copy" the memos, I figured he was a forger. It's 2005 - - if he was openly making copies, why wouldn't he just do it on his computer? He only came forward with his admission when he realized he was stone-cold caught. In other words, his "admission" to the AP was preemptive.

The only thing left to be seen is how much (if any) integrity his newspaper has.

[iconoclast]

Did he really destroy them, type them on plain paper?

The man FIRST said that he copied the originals then gave the originals back to attorneys.

Then he typed from the copies and then destroyed the copies.

After reading some FReepers post of the stern penalties possible in Great Britain I suggest that he may have changed his story in an attempt to head off further inquiry.

[TheForceOfOne]

To anyone looking at the image with your own software, it helps to emboss the image to draw out the highlights adding depth to the image.

[Colorado Doug]

Yes, you may be famous too but only for fifteen minutes. Good work!

[Dianna]

Be careful what you wish for...the coming media anal exam probably won't be pleasant.

[PGalt]

BUMP!

[abner]

Did you get a hold of Dom?

[chudogg]

Who cares if they are fake? There is nothing remotely controversial or interesting in the memos in the first place. Regardless of the feeble minded attempts of liberals screaming "DOWNING STREET MEMOS!" over and over at each other in internet chat rooms.

[F.J. Mitchell]

We, your fellow Freepers, dub thee, "Doctor Raoul Buckhead"

Well done.

[Polybius]

The linked Reuters page adds:

"Recommend THIS PHOTO.... Recommend It: "

It seems that Reuters was just conducting a PhotoShop image contest.......... The eyeglasses in the image were a nice touch.

Be that as it may, anybody could claim to have transcribed the original of any document and then destroyed the originals.

I transcribed the original confession where John Kerry admitted to sabotaging Senator Heinz's aircraft so that he could later marry Teresa Heinz and live off a $550 million fortune. Of course, I destroyed the originals to protect my sources.

[jocon307]

Doctor Raoul, you are ALREADY famous like Buckhead. Next we must discover if you can bend it like Beckham!

[GOPJ]

hmmmmm...

[Peace will be here soon]

For later reading.

[jtullins]

Sorry to burst the bubble of all the conspiracy theorists, but the DSM is supposed to be the minutes of a meeting of high level British officials. If somebody just made it up, they would've officially denied it by now, instead of just saying no comment.

[Reactionary]

What's most bizarre about the seal is that, if you magnify the image in Photoshop, it appears to be a *raised* seal.

It may be a photocopy and the raised seal has merely been duplicated as a function of shadow. It doesn't look that way to me, however. It may be an original. There's no way it's simply been retyped on plain paper using an old typewriter.

I suppose it's possible that the seal could have been duplicated using a rubber stamp and then photocopied, but then it's evident that the journalist's story is a complete lie.

[lowbridge]

Can I Be Famous Like Buckhead?

I thought you already were.

Ah, well. You do know the Famous FReepers secret handshake, dont you?