That's Gotta Hurt

From Tuesday’s WaPo:

The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from President Bush’s former squadron commander in the National Guard said yesterday that he examined only the late officer’s signature and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves.

“There’s no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them,” Marcel Matley said in a telephone interview from San Francisco. The main reason, he said, is that they are “copies” that are “far removed” from the originals.

With that strong a lead-in, you might expect the story to taper off. Instead, writers Michael Dobbs and Howard Kurtz land hammer blow after hammer blow on CBS’s, Dan Rather’s, and the forged memo’s credibility.

Meanwhile, the talk on left-leaning sites continues to boggle the mind.

Kevin Drum hasn’t said anything since Sunday, in a post best summarized by Kevin himself: “I really don’t know what it all means.”

All Atrios had to say today on the matter was that CBS shouldn’t have to reveal their sources. Actually, he didn’t even say that much, he just posted a transcript from CNN’s Capital Gang.

Kos just keeps hitting the “Bush Was AWOL” theme, even though nobody seems to care. Other than that, there was nothing there I could find since at least Sunday morning.

So — where are the conspiracy theories, guys? Where are the “Rove did it to make Kerry look bad” memes?

I’ll tell you where they are. The same place they want the whole forgery story: Down the memory hole, as quickly as possible. They don’t want to know who slipped Dan the memos, because it was probably someone from Team Kerry, or at least a Kerry partisan.

But let’s pretend it was Karl Rove or one of his Evil Minions who pulled a fast one on Rather & Co. Anyone who would fall for such a blatant ploy so easily, so readily, and with such unwarranted confidence, deserves to get egg on their face. And not just egg, but a Denver Omelette with a big splash of hot salsa.

Caveat emptor, suckers.