In a long and ongoing discussion on (now proven) fabulist Private Beauchamp over at Winds of Change, the topic drifts to Rathergate.

However, one fake document which claimed things that were almost certainly true, was widely regarded to somehow prove they were false because that document itself was fake. Very twisted logic there.

I must have missed that. Maybe someone somewhere argued that this proved that Bush wasn't AWOL, but I don't recall ever seeing such an argument.

But then, I never had a strong opinion on whether or not Bush was AWOL (and still don't). Furthermore, I never much cared, because Bush has always said that when he was young and stupid, he was young and stupid, and he (unlike John Kerry) wasn't running on his youthful military record--he was running on his more-recent record as president.

Frankly, what was so funny to me about the thing was that the people who were pushing the "Bush is AWOL" story thought that it would damage him with his base, when in fact they were the only people who gave a rat's patoot (and then only because of the political damage they thought it could do to their enemy, not because they have any intrinsic problems with soldiers going AWOL--many of them would probably laud that in general). It's the same mentality that causes them to "out" gay Republicans.

What Rathergate proved to me was that some supposedly objective journalists were willing to fabricate, or overlook the fabrication of, documents to support their political agenda, just weeks before an election. It also proved to me that they were idiots. I think that there's very sound logic behind that.

One minor fact that the left just keeps ignoring is that young Lt. George W. Bush volunteered for Operation Palace Watch, which sent Air Guard Units to Vietnam to accompany bombers. He was turned down due to lack of flight time, despite the fact that he tried pulling strings (ironically the only time he did so.)

Actually Mark I think the program was called "Palace Alert" otherwise you are completely right.

This suggests to me a good political thriller storyline: A closest partisan for political party A pretends for an extended period to be a political partisan for party B. Then he "unearths" dirt on party A. After some digging, others from party A prove that the dirt has been fabricated. This brings down political blowback on party B which, of course, is what closeted partisan wanted in the first place. Probably in film noir fashion, intrepid hero uncovers the whole sordid plot, but is unable to turn the tables and must watch the success of partisan's nefarious scheme.

This is simply a logical extension of the trolls who claim to be on one "side" and issue ridiculous versions of the beliefs of that "side." I wonder how much of this sort of thing is already going on.