In reaction to the "fake but accurate" story in the morning's paper, Josh Marshall writes:

The word is out and about now that the CBS Bush National Guard memos are not forgeries but rather recreations of actual documents authored by Lt. Col. Killian.

(snip)

There's a word, though, for these sorts of recreations, if that's what they are: forgeries.

There's no sense or possibility of getting around that.

Actually, that's not quite true, either. The correct word for that sort of recreation is counterfeit, which Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary defines as something "made in imitation of something else with intent to deceive: FORGED". Forgery, on the other hand, is defined as "the crime of falsely and fraudulently making or altering a document (as a check)." While forgeries are always counterfeit, not all counterfeits are forgeries; the distinction is whether the creator of the document intended to defraud another, that is, to obtain some form of pecuniary benefit through his act of trickery, and not merely done solely to trick or fool someone.