The CBS National Guard document scandal has been all over the blogosphere for the last twenty four hours. The question is no longer whether the documents are fraudulent, that seems to be highly probable, the question everyone is speculating about now is how did these counterfeits get into the hands of 60 Minutes and who's behind the scam.
There are other interesting questions as well, like will there be any accountability, will this shorten Dan Rather's career, and so on.
Perhaps the most significant consequence of this episode, however, is that it will make it exceedingly difficult to persuade the American voters of the truth of any charge against George Bush. CBS and Rather are being made into laughingstocks over this and few elements of the major media are going to risk a similar fate trying to shore up Kerry's sagging campaign by running allegations based on anything less than absolutely certain evidence.
It is astonishing that, according to The American Spectator's Prowler, the DNC first came into possession of these documents and had suspicions about their authenticity, but passed them on to the Kerry campaign anyway which then forwarded them to CBS. In other words, they were willing to tarnish Bush with charges which they believed may not have been true. Nice people. They're getting what they deserve.
As a side note: Anyone who has read Bernie Goldberg's book Bias which exposes the inner workings of CBS News and Dan Rather's pomposity will think that any embarrassment which attaches to Rather over this will also be richly deserved.
This episode is turning out to be a black eye, or worse, for everyone involved except the man whom the punch was intended for. As Viewpoint has noted before, watching this campaign is like watching the 1976 Peter Sellars film Return of the Pink Panther with Bush's opponents in the role of Inspector Dreyfuss.
For more on the controversy go here, here, and especially AllahPundit here.