Here's an intriguing line in Politico's explanation of why it has removed the disputed 'hoax' memo on health reform that had previously been described as a Democratic memo (emphasis mine):
An earlier post in this spot detailed what was purported by Republicans to be an internal Democratic memo regarding the upcoming health reform vote Sunday.
That seems to be a clear indication that the memo -- which Democrats say is not authentic -- was first distributed to the media by Republicans. Politico's update does not say which Republicans supplied the memo, but Greg Sargent found evidence that John Boehner's office was sending the memo to reporters within minutes of Politico's original report.
This doesn't prove that memo is a hoax or that Republicans created it, but in addition to categorical Democratic assertions that it is a hoax, one of the reasons to be skeptical of its authenticity is that it demands members of Congress keep quiet about plans to pass the so-called "doctor fix," which would improve Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors. The problem with that demand is that both Speaker Pelosi and President Obama in recent days have publicly acknowledged that they plan to address the reimbursement problem in separate legislation -- so there's no secret to be kept. Maybe some junior aide could have written that, but not a leadership staffer.
Moreover, it's hard to imagine Democratic communications staff using some of the language in the memo. For example, given the GOP line of attack on "government takeover," do you think a communications staffer would ever say "reform will take control of insurance companies" and laud the White House for "informing the American people" of this supposed fact? That sounds more like a Glenn Beck fantasy of what Democrats say than what Democrats actually say. So I'll put my money it being hoax, but you never know.
Update (3:17PM): Marc Ambinder offers his views on the memo, which he also posted. In short, Ambinder says it was distributed to him -- on the record -- by Boehner communication aide Michael Steel (not the RNC chairman). Ambinder says that while the memo was not written by White House or Congressional leadership, he does not know if it was a hoax. If it was a hoax, he does not believe it was created by Steel. Ambinder says he suspects it was written by a Democrat or someone aligned with Democrats, though not in the leadership. Whether or not he's right on that last point (and at this point it's pure conjecture), everybody now seems to agree the memo did not come from Democratic leadership and Republican staff and reporters jumped the gun in representing it as such.
