robert:

I think this has to be the work of a desparate young Bush hater. [snip]

I think if an adult higher up in the food chain was responsible, the forgeries would have been more accurate (use a typewriter or at least inspect some period documents and choose a font that is close). Even if it was Rove (unlikely) he would have made good forgeries so that he would he sure CBS would take the bait while holding something that would prove them false as soon as he had sucked as many as possible into his trap.

Bullseye, I suspect.

The artlessness of the forgeries (assuming they are such) bespeaks a twenty- or thirty-something who had no more experience of typewriters than he did of sliderules or LPs, and therefore didn’t realize the gaffes he was making.

My guess is that he was probably just trying to “help,” somehow got the documents to the Kerry campaign, which was trying to decide whether or not to believe them when Kerry got torched by the Swifties. That tipped the decision. Stung by the Swifties, and reasoning that desperate times call for desperate measures, someone in the campaign figured, what the hell, let the media figure out whether or not the documents are authentic, and passed them along.

The relevant parties at CBS wanted the story to be true, which blinded them to the problems. While they were mulling over the authenticity of the documents, they had reason to believe someone else (Kitty Kelley?) was about to scoop them on this red-hot story, and that tipped their decision.

I’m sceptical of all conspiracy theories (as befits my screen name) as being too complicated. Before accepting any conspiracy scenarios, I’d have to rule out the prime movers of the universe, stupidity and incompetence, which apparently had a field day here.

Most likely, the only malice was on the part of the original hoaxer, who probably never dreamt things would go this far.