The Mysterious Case of Bush's National Guard Records

REVISED AND REPOSTED

A lot of blogs are on the story about the apparently forged documents used by CBS in its attack on Bush's record of service with the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. Powerline has been in the lead all the way. The relevant Powerline posts are here, here, here, and here.

I have nothing to add but this: Suppose it's true that the documents are bad forgeries. And suppose someone saw to it that those forgeries found their way to CBS through sources credible to CBS? I'm just saying suppose...

That raises two possibilities. The documents might have been clumsy forgeries by Democrat operatives. If that's the case, they deserve every bit of backlash that's coming to them. Alternatively, the documents might have been created by Bush partisans in a clever effort to defuse the attacks on Bush.

If, in the fullness of time, we discover that the documents were planted by Bush partisans, their prank will go down in the annals of political dirty tricks as one of the greatest -- if not the greatest -- dirty tricks of all time. A "clean" dirty trick, designed not to smear a candidate but to discredit those who are out to smear a candidate.

I can't wait to see how this plays out.