I decided to get some more background on the Times of London reporter who decided on a bizarre method to ‘hide’ his source through some creative transcribing. Suffice to say Michael Smith has been on a bit of tour pushing the memos and what they could mean. He interviewed with the Washington Post recently and took quesions, with some enlightening answers:

Manassas, VA: …I hope that your presenting this issue to the world helps the U.S. people change our leadership perhaps sooner than the next election. Do you feel this is grounds for us to do so, i.e., to impeach our current President (granted this may not be your area of expertise)?

Michael Smith: I personally believe there are grounds for it but not yet, not in the memos we’ve seen. It needs U.S. reporters to get to work to take the documents and their implications forward.
…
Orlando, FL: You have experienced reaction to the Bush/Blair mendacity on the Iraq run up on both sides of the pond.. How do you compare them?

Is there a chance Blair will eventual go with a vote of No Confidence (nice that you have it)..

Here, the chance of Bush being impeached seems slim… Thought the facts certainly justify it..

Michael Smith: I think Blair will go although I personally think Bush is much more at risk because there is an unstoppable public feeling against the continued presence of U.S. soldiers as targets for insurgents. The polls and the public pressure are not going Bush’s way. There is no doubt in my mind that the administration lied and distorted the truth, one Congress begins to realise the scale of it, Bush could be in serious trouble.
…
Cocoa, FL: ….A great number of voters are concerned and will our Congress have support for an investigation with what is known? Are there other facts we still don’t know publicly?

Michael Smith: Yes there are other facts you still don’t know and the media should be using these public documents as a base from which to find them out because it is those facts that will really damage Bush.
…
Washington, D.C.: I think the implications of all of this information is truly unknown. Our Post reporters chat with us here online saying that it’s not going to lead to impeachment. I am not so sure. But if not that far, I see this as causing a great deal of problems for our government. What do you think will be the consequences, if any, for Blair?

Michael Smith: I bow to their better judgment on impeachment. I do think that the pressure now is such that it could go that way but only with continued pressure from us journalists and you the people. I firmly believe that Congress will turn against this awful ill-conceived war.

And on and on it went. One has to wonder if Mr. Smith was so desparate to see Bush impeached he decided to ‘sex up’ the documents?

UPDATE:

Check out this excellent post at UNCoRRELATED on the art of forgery and similarities to the Downing St Memos. For the record, I am still not convinced the information in these memos is news at all and therefore these are forgeries, but Michael Smith may be end up being a very interesting news story himself.