September 10, 2004

The Smoking Gun that Wasn't

THE story is the extremely questionable documents CBS News used to go after President Bush. Because of the power of the blogosphere I don't need to get into the details of fonts, typesets, or typewriters used and available in the 1970s. That's the power of the link.

• Power Line has enough damning material to confidently write, "60 Minutes is toast."
  
  
• The Command Post updating with new links and info as they come in.
  
  
• This evidence isn't convincing to all. Oliver Willis tries his best to move the discussion away from anti-Bush dirty tricks back to "Was Bush AWOL?" With CBS investigating itself that won't happen.
  

Why didn't the White House immediately call the memos fake? Their existence doesn't really affect their re-election strategy. Unlike Sen. Kerry President Bush isn't running on his military record. He's running on four years as President where he's had to deal with a war and a terrorist-induced recession. Rove and the gang are viewing Bush's National Guard duty as history that has little bearing on events today. Notice that they've been consistent on this. They haven't leaped to the SwiftVets' claims and attacked Kerry's Vietnam war record. Why bother when Kerry's Senatorial past and mish-mash of statements are enough to use against him?

Next, I'll speculate about the after effects of this hoax. It would take some mental gymnastics to think this was a GOP set up. Is Karl Rove or one of his minions cleaver enough to create the memos then get them into the hands of a Kerry supporter or directly to 60 Minutes? Such an idea seems too far fetched. So Rove setting up the Kerry campaign and a liberal news institution is checked off my list of possibilities.

Could this be the product of someone inside the Kerry campaign? Susan Estrich wrote about how the Democrats now had to play dirty, but would they risk the integrity of their campaign on a hoax? Sure, poll numbers are heading in the wrong direction, but there's two months left. Too many things could happen in this race. With the sudden inclusion of ex-Clintonites, the campaign may be panicking. Proposing a hoax and executing it is possible, but not likely. A hail mary already? There's too much downside, and they can't be that desparate...yet.

The most plausible guilty party is a cold blooded Bush basher hater. I'm talking Michael Moore level--maybe it was him. From how the memos were constructed all that is needed is a computer, a printer, a photocopier, and some military memos to figure out how to emulate the style. The hardest part is getting them to 60 Minutes. Whoever did this needed media contacts and separation from Kerry Edwards to give the campaign plausible deniability. The Commisar suspects Chris Lehane. It could be him, or more likely someone we've never heard of. How about a Deaniac who is shaking with anger that Bush is leading? These are just speculations. Pacetown has some of its own, and add your own in the comments.

60 Minutes MUST come clean and disclose how they got these documents. (Why they didn't is just plain poor journalism.) Who gave them these and how did they claim to have come upon them? This is their Jayson Blair. If they do as poorly in dealing with it high-ups at CBS News will be gone--even Dan Rather.

As for the political fallout, this only helps Bush and hurts Kerry. Even if we find out Kerry Edwards had nothing to do with this hoax they will be tarred as dirty players. This is just like many feel the Bush campaign has something to do with the SwiftVets. Many voters will look at this attempt at stealing the election and vote for Bush even if they hold their noses while doing it.

With CBS News' reputation in tatters expect the mainstream media to write lots of stories on what went wrong. Don't be surprised if the news process story is written about more than who forged the memos.

"60 Minutes Documents on Bush Might Be Fake"

"False Documentation?"

"Is It a Hoax?"