OK, so now CBS News has come out and said they were fooled on the Killian Memos. They are most likely fakes. Many folks (yours truly included) defended the memos.

So, let me pull my foot out of my mouth and offer an explanation. I was writing as someone who has written a document or two in Microsoft Word, and before that on an IBM Selectric typewriter. The typographical elements claimed by initial detractors were indeed possible on 1970’s typewriters. That’s where I came down on the side of Dan Rather.

But I never had the originals, instead relying on copies of copies of downloads at low resolution. Silly me.

Anyway, let’s suppose those memos are fakes. Who do you think is the likely culprit? The Democrats? Why would they place so much political capital on poorly-forged memos that prove a point that everyone already knows: there’s unanswered questions about Bush getting into the Guard and Bush fulfilling his commitment. In fact, the content of the memos has never been questioned.

So, if it was the Democrats, we would have to conclude that they were very ham-handed in execution, which I don’t believe. We’d have to believe that they’d be so dumb as to forge 1970’s typewritten memos on a personal computer. Why would any true forger skip the easy step of acquiring a real 70’s-era Selectric. There’s plenty of them.

My theory is that it was Republican sympathizers who deliberately created an easily-disproven forgery. Think about it. This administration fell for — or created — a worse forgery on the Niger yellowcake documents. Karl Rove has been known to bug his own offices in order to blame the opponents for spying.

What’s to lose? If they turn in a poor forgery to CBS and it’s discovered and never aired, then they’re no worse off. But if they get the memos on the air, it once again distracts us from the real issues (a la Swift Boat), focuses on a part of Bush’s history that no one seems to care about, and once proven fake, they provide a way of skipping past the Bush Guard issue just when Kerry could have pulled that card in order to rebut the Swift Boat allegations. Maybe if they’re real lucky they take down Dan Rather and fire a shot across the Corporate Media bow to keep them off of investigating Bush’s past. Best of all, they bring suspicions of dirty tricks on the Democrats.

Remember, this is an administration that will do anything to win. There is no integrity in the Rove camp, only winners and losers. These people felt no compunction about outing a CIA operative in retaliation for whistleblowing on the Niger forgery. They felt no dishonor in smearing vets like John McCain and Max Cleland when they stood in the way.

Now, can we get the whole memo business off the airwaves and start talking about the draft-dodging, alcoholic, warmongering, fundamentalist, un-tax and spend, deserter blow-monkey in the White House?