What if the Rathergate forger(s) had had a clue?

A thoughtful reader emails with this question:

Perhaps I have missed it, but has anyone (yourself, Rush, etc.) ever discussed what the consequences would have been if Dan Rather's informant, being more astute, had typed the fraudulent documents on a period typewriter? Would we now be discussing the policies, etc. of President Kerry?!

It may well be that someone with a better crystal ball than mine has already thoroughly addressed this topic and that if so, I've missed it too. But I'm a fan of "alternative histories" and rarely shy about venturing opinions and speculation, so here's what my own crystal ball tells me.

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What if our presumed forger(s) — the anonymous source(s) from whom CBS News' source Bill Burkett purportedly received the documents — had used a contemporaneous typewriter, one of the sort available to Dubya's TANG unit at the time the documents were supposedly written? If that were the only factual change that we assume for our alternative history, then I think that before the election, the documents still would have ultimately been proved — to the satisfaction of a large segment of the well-informed and open-minded public — to have been forged anyway.

Recall that one of the "verifications" supposedly relied upon by CBS News was the White House staff's lack of an immediate denial when CBS News previewed the documents for them just before the broadcast aired. As things turned out, the blogosphere immediately snapped to the peculiarities, typographic and otherwise, of the documents. Eventually the White House (or at its request, the DoD and/or TANG) would have weighed in, probably saying, "We've re-checked and re-re-checked the official files, and we're highly confident that no copies of these documents were ever in them." Of course, the forger(s)' cover story was that they were from Col. Killian's "private files"; there's a history of mislaid or misfiled documents dribbling out (which surprises no veteran I've ever met, but some folks find significant); and some people won't accept Dubya's or the DoD's or the TANG's assertion that "all the files" have been searched and documents pertaining to Dubya released, no matter what.

But the other fishy circumstances — misuse of military terminology, abbreviations, formatting, etc., and the strong suspicions from other contemporaneous near-witnesses — by themselves raised very substantial doubts about the documents' authenticity. Add that to the lack of corroboration, and contrary opinions, of the near-witnesses, and I'm quite certain that the question of whether the documents were genuine would have come up, typeface notwithstanding.

So my guess is that not too many voters would have been swayed in this scenario — I don't think there were many voters for whom Dubya's TANG service was a key factor in voting for him, and those who felt it was a key factor in voting against him were already persuaded by the previous criticisms of his record by the MSM and liberal punditry. "Fishy" documents, even if not fully proven as forgeries, likely wouldn't have swayed enough votes to have changed anything important.

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If we alter the scenario to presume a much more competent forger — one who got not only the typography right, but who also got the military abbreviations and formatting and terminology spot-on — then it's a much closer call.

The absence of the documents from "official" records, plus the doubting opinions of near-witnesses, by themselves wouldn't have convinced many folks that there was a genuine question of the documents having been forged. CBS News might well have been able to continue to stonewall on the identity of its "reliable source" at least until after the election. (For a course syllabus in "Brazen-but-Effective Stonewalling 101," consult the John Kerry Military Academy; see also the Miller-Cooper Institute for Self-Righteous Journalists Concealing Sources' Identities on "Principle.")

Would this scenario have swung the election? I can see it swinging maybe one percentage point of the total vote.  I have no reason to think that, for example, it would have swung a disproportionate number of Ohio voters, but a one percent swing there could have made things Florida-2000 tight. My gut tells me that it still wouldn't have changed the election's outcome, and that one percent is an overgenerous guestimate. But it might well have undercut the basis on which Dubya has been able to claim having a broad mandate, however, with resulting significant weakness in his second term.

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The big historical change that I think is most reasonable to posit as the consequence of a more competent forger, though, doesn't have to do directly with the election, but instead with the consequences of Ra^thergate for Dan Rather, CBS News, and the MSM generally. Especially if we assume that CBS News would have been able to keep the identity of its source confidential (and the squirrelly and conflicting stories that its source told them), the case against Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, et al. would have been much less compelling. Dangerous Dan still hasn't admitted without qualifications that the documents were forged; without the typographic case, he certainly never would have, even in the face of impeaching evidence like the abbreviations/formatting/terminology problems.

What absolutely damns the whole crew to Journalism Hell is that they aired and then resolutely defended the story notwithstanding the huge red flags their own document experts (even though they were primarily handwriting experts) had raised about the typeface. Some of the smaller red flags that CBS News had ignored (e.g., relying solely on photocopies) and shortcuts they took (e.g., failing to probe Burkett's story more deeply, or not letting Lt. Robert Strong actually see the documents when they solicited his guess as to their genuineness) might have been excused by many folks — but that one cannot be excused by anyone with an ounce of integrity or common sense. It's the difference between shoddy journalism and outright fraud — with the experts' warnings providing absolute proof of the mens rea ("guilty mind") of the CBS News culprits.

In short, had the forger(s) been smarter, CBS News' credibility likely would not have been thoroughly destroyed, and there's little hope that anyone in the MSM or the public generally would have learned any convincing lessons from this episode. The jury is still out on the extent to which the MSM has actually absorbed and accepted those lessons, or will alter its future conduct based upon them. But a vast portion of the public had its eyes opened (pun on the CBS logo intended). And for that, we can be thankful that the forger(s) were so thoroughly inept.

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UPDATE (Sun Feb 20 @ 8:00pm):  Charles Johnson at LGF reports that Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) — a/k/a The Hon. Gentleman from Woodstock — is apparently also a fan of alternative histories. In his, Karl Rove forged and planted the memos! The problem is, Rep. Hinchey is seriously trying to pass this fantasy off as truth. (He'd have been slightly more persuasive had he managed to remember which network Dan Rather works for, in my humble opinion.)