September 14, 2004 [LINK]

Bush and the Air National Guard

Today's Washington Post lays out very damaging evidence casting severe doubt on the authenticity of those alleged Texas Air National Guard memos on President Bush. Incredibly (!), CBS News remains defiant in its defense of the 60 Minutes story and their sources. They cite two experts to back up the authenticity of those documents, but many more experts have unequivocally declared them bogus. Many wonder how a forgery could have slipped by, and most people assume it was simple arrogance on the part of Dan Rather and his CBS editors. Many bloggers -- perhaps prematurely triumphant -- are already proclaiming that this "Ra^therGate" scandal signifies the irrevocable decline of mainstream (liberal-slanted) television news. I can understand how the superscripted "th" happened; it's one of those annoying "features" of Microsoft Word that is very difficult to turn off. Uncle Bill Gates knows what's best!

Another fascinating (but far-fetched) possibility is raised by Rich Hailey (via InstaPundit): It may have been a conspiracy by the Clintonistas who recently arrived with the mission of trying to "save" Kerry's nosediving campaign, but who instead decided to dump Kerry from the Democratic ticket by means of this easily traceable scandal that will likely incriminate him and his inner circle, and then replace him with ... Hillary! Remember how the Democrats replaced Bob Torricelli just a few weeks before the 2002 election, after the filing deadline? One of the Clintonistas, Susan Estrich, practically boasted about the dirty tricks about to be unleashed, so extreme scenarios cannot be discounted entirely. Seriously, this whole campaign is turning very creepy.