Thanks For All You Do

MEMO

DATE: June 7, 2005

FROM: White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett

TO: News Department Heads of NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX.

Dear Friends,

I want to thank you all for your continuing efforts to keep the Downing Street Memo out of the limelight. As we’ve all agreed, the attention span of the American public is shorter than Russell Crowe’s temper, so the memo business is truly old news unworthy of your valuable air time.

However, there have been a few rogue newspapers around the country that have broken ranks and made a big deal of the memos. Fortunately, these are smaller market papers and there have only been minor reverberations. But, in everyone’s best interests, it is a trend that we do not want to see expand. If your parent company owns any of the offending papers, please convey your displeasure about this situation and ask that they “speak” to the editors. We need to nip this integrity thing in the bud. We all know the harm that would result should the DSM story gain any momentum. It would be sad indeed not to be able to welcome all members of the press to White House functions and briefings.

The President extends a special “thank you” to all of you for your allegiance and ongoing cooperation. You are serving a higher purpose as you help us advance democracy around the world while we retool it here at home. Good work, everyone.

Dan