There's Blood in the Water...

...and it belongs to CBS News.

The whole conservative side of the blogosphere is buzzing about the allegations that CBS News used forged documents on their 60 Minutes broadcast last night. Instapundit has a roundup of the latest news, and the story seems to have snowballed in just a few hours, with new updates as we speak. Powerline, the ones who first got the ball rolling, have so many updates they are starting a new post.

I've seen the documents in question (just follow the links above) and there's no doubt in my mind: They're forgeries, and cheap ones, at that. The signatures are not even remotely similar, and then there's the small "th" superscript after the squadron numbers, something that was not even available on typewriters in the 1970's.

The question is, why would CBS bet their reputation on something so obviously false? Simple answer: Because it hurt George Bush. Since it fulfilled their wildest dreams about George Bush ("a smoking gun, at last!"), they accepted it without question. And now they are going to pay for it.

Big time, as the Veep would say.