christophe thinks out loud

The CBS National Guard Documents

I normally don’t bother just adding a link to another story, but in this particularly nasty time when we have a rather astonishing number of outright lies being circulated in an attempt to make sure the incumbent wins election, and when you have the Speaker of the House of Representatives issuing politically-motivated slander, this one bears linking to: “At least” 90% chance that the CBS National Guard documents are fake.

Updated: The more I read, the more convinced I am that they are, in fact, forgeries, and not particularly good ones. Given that, the question becomes, of course, who is responsible?

• As a (somewhat reluctant) Kerry supporter, I would very much hope it is not his campaign or anyone associated with it, even at the level of the nudge-nudge-wink-wink that the Bush campaign gave the Swifties. If it was anyone who actually does want Kerry to win, it was an astonishingly moronic thing to do.
• It's also possible (and somewhat supported by the utter stony silence from the White House or Bush campaign on the subject) that these were injected into the campaign by someone who is, in fact, pro-Bush. If so, it's very clever: since they're forgeries, they're not damaging, and it grounds out the whole National Guard issue. Next time it comes up, even if the evidence is entirely legitimate, we'll get a tired, world-weary yawn, accompanied by, "Oh, what? More documents?"

I hate this campaign.