I Don't Want to Say I Told You So

But I told you so. CBS admits it can't prove the fake documents are real (because they aren't), and that they made a mistake. And so we begin the inevitable finger-pointing at the Kerry campaign -- which could have done pre-emptive damage control by condemning the fake documents a week ago, but didn't. Now they're vulnerable to Republican news releases like this one, which is readily available via Google:

To: National Desk and Political Reporter

Contact: Christine Iverson of the Republican National Committee, 202-863-8614

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke made the following statement today:

"Bill Burkett, Democrat activist and Kerry campaign supporter, passes information to the DNC; Kerry campaign surrogate Max Cleland discusses "valuable" information with Bill Burkett; Bill Burkett talks to "senior" Kerry campaign officials; an apparently unsuspecting news organization uses faked forged memos and an interview with Ben Barnes at the same time the Democratic National Committee launched Operation Fortunate Son; and Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill was among the first to call Ben Barnes and congratulate him after his interview. The trail of connections is becoming increasingly clear."

There's some good news for Kerry in CBS' admission. The network admitted that Burkett, a retired Texas National Guard official, provided it with the documents -- and the New York Times had a report Saturday that suggests Democrats didn't seem very interested in the information Burkett was peddling.

Burkett complained on Aug. 21 "in an e-mail letter circulated to a list of about 600 Texas Democrats" that when he called the campaign, he had to "get through seven layers of bureaucratic kids trying to get a job after the election." Finally he got to talk to Max Cleland, the veteran and ex-Georgia senator. And, as the Times explains:

Alluding to advertisements by a veterans group that deprecates Mr. Kerry's Vietnam service, Mr. Burkett continued, "I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. He said counterattack."

"So I gave them the information to do it with," Mr. Burkett wrote. "But none of them have called me back."

There's one other scrap of good news for Democrats: Burkett says he got the documents from still another source. So maybe that source got them from another source, too, and maybe somewhere up the source ladder is Karl Rove. Democrats can't escape a serious burn from this without somehow showing Republicans orchestrated the whole thing.