If the Rathergate forgery had been better

I find the influence of the blogosphere a fascinating topic. So this post caught my attention. The author asks, what would have happened if the forgers of the “Rathergate” letter had used a real period typewriter instead of computer and a laser printer?

The author of the post has a very long argument about how the forgery would have eventually been found out. But I’m going to very succinctly disagree. Without a smoking gun, the forgery meme would never have been bought into by many people. CBS would have had plausible deniability. Dan Rather would still have his job.

One commenter put it like this:

Hell, go one step further: what if the documents were legit?

We would have had the devastating revelation that Bush was the son of a rich and powerful man who benefited from Dad's connections.

If the son of a rich and powerful man with connections to either of the two political parties came to my company looking for a job, I assure you that we’d give him some extra special treatment. That’s just the way the world works. You need to have friends in high places.