The Dallas Morning News reports that Marian Carr Knox, Jerry Killian’s former secretary, has confirmed the Dan Ra^ther’s memos are definitely fake, but then prattles on about how the basic idea of the forged documents was right anyway. Lest anyone take her strong opinions about Bush too seriously, however:

She added that she does not support Mr. Bush as president, deeming him “unfit for office” and “selected, not elected.”

OK, seriously now. Do you know anyone who lends any credence at all to clichés like “selected, not elected,” yet have ever seriously considered voting for Bush in 2000, let alone 2004? You’d think Ms. Knox would either eschew such cheap shots in an interview, or at least be smart enough to lie better than that if she wants to be taken seriously by anyone.

The article goes on to stress that note that neither the terminology nor the signatures match, and that according to Ms. Knox the memos would never have been typed by anyone but her anyway, and she definitely did not remember typing any such cover your ass memos. Oddly enough, however, she does recall cover your back memos, and also recalls Jerry Killian having had good reason to write such a memo about non-General Stoudt having pressured him to give favorable ratings to George W. Bush, the fortunate son of a then-obscure first term Congressman. O-kay.

Between that, Ra^ther’s own televised, non-forged CYA memo and today’s editorial in the L.A. Dog Trainer, (h/t: Powerline)I am beginning to sense a pattern: acknowledge the fraud, then quickly change the subject and act as if the fraud was no big deal since the stories contained in the fradulent documents were probably mostly true anyway. The Trainer offers this pearl of wisdom:

Whatever the truth, CBS’ [sic] real error was trying to prove a point that didn’t need to be proved.

Um, no. CBS’s real error was in presenting documents whose authenticity they should have known actually knew to be in grave doubt. The rest is details.

It doesn’t take documents for anyone to realize that Bush pulled strings to get into the National Guard.

Oh no, of course not. It doesn’t take documentation for anyone to “realize” anything they’ve already made up their mind to believe. All it takes is a good enough memory to recall that Dubya’s Daddy was once President, plus a crappy enough one to forget he was nowhere near national prominence at the time Dubya joined the National Guard. It also helps to know from the same See B.S. segment that he did so with the assistance of Ben Barnes, whom he’d never met and who was still a year away from assuming the political office he supposedly used to help him. [UPDATE: that last assertion wrong. According to the transcript (WARNING: CBS content, may be forged), Barnes did not claim to have anachronistically used his position as Lieutenant Governor to help Bush get into the Guard. He claimed to have used that position later on to help others. As to Bush, he's clear that whatever help he did or did not offer, it was based on his actual 1968 position, as Speaker of the House. My bad.]

Even if this story weren’t so incredibly contrived, however, wouldn’t it be enough to chastise See B.S. for pushing their fraudulent documents - and friggin’ leave it at that? Switching the subject to how the fradulent memos probably say truthful things anyway is reminiscent of this familiar Monty Python scene from the Holy Grail:

BEDEVERE:
Bring her forward.
WITCH:
I’m not a witch. I’m not a witch.
BEDEVERE:
Uh, but you are dressed as one.
WITCH:
They dressed me up like this.
CROWD:
Augh, we didn’t! We didn’t…
WITCH:
And this isn’t my nose. It’s a false one.
BEDEVERE:
Well?
VILLAGER #1:
Well, we did do the nose.

BEDEVERE:
The nose?
VILLAGER #1:
And the hat, but she is a witch!
VILLAGER #2:
Yeah!

UPDATE: Chris Lawrence has a not dissimilar take on the New York Dog Trainer’s implicit argument that forging memos is OK as long as the forged memos still say what you want to say.