Run Away

The Boston Globe has a front page story today saying the documents are real, but the Los Angeles Times has a front page story meticulously picking apart CBS's report defending the memos. (See? Told you this wasn't going away. And tomorrow it will be all over the Sunday shows, which will propel it into next week.)

Among the Times' findings:

-CBS's handwriting expert, Marcel B. Matley, only verified that one of the four documents was real, and CBS won't reveal the names of their other document experts. (If such experts really exist -- and I don't think they do.)

-Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, who was Killian's immediate supervisor and one of the CBS sources who provided insights into Killian's thinking, now says he doesn't think the documents are real.

-Killian's son, Gary, told the repugnant Sean Hannity that CBS had "ignored his warnings that the memos were not real." (Thanks for giving Sean Hannity 10 seconds of credibility, CBS. You should be ashamed.)

-Democratic Chairman Terry McAuliffe has joined me in suggesting that Karl Rove may have given the documents to CBS. (Yet for some reason hasn't told Kerry or his campaign to run far away, far away, from the memos.)

Why are Democrats still clinging to the possibility that these might be real? It's a terrible gamble. Even if Killian comes back from the dead to vouch for them, they won't make much difference -- the records only confirm that Bush got special treatment, which we already knew.

But if the records turn out to be fake, all of these Democrats who have foolishly stapled themselves to them -- arguing about Selectric typewriters and fonts and how Dan Rather probably knows Killian's intentions better than his own family -- are going to look like they were somehow involved in the hoax. And voters are going to blame Kerry.

Get away from these memos. Run.