The Killian docs: The story's not over yet! (corrected)

The tale of the CBS documents becomes more intriguing as each day passes.

First, a correspondent -- who happens to be a former National Guardsman -- assures me that Saturdays were work days in Guard offices. That's a strike against one of the major points in the Washington Post expose.

Rather's source, Mr. Burkett, has been described in scabrous terms on cable television; I vividly recall Pat Buchanan calling him a "flake" and a "discredited source." For the other side of the story, read this piece by Greg Palast.

For the a terrific summation of the case against Rove as the "onlie begettor" of this imbroglio, read this fine investigative report, which puts lots of new facts on the table. An excerpt:

With each day that passes, it becomes clearer that either the "Killian memos" are copies of true originals, or were retyped by someone whose purpose was to destroy the credibility of Bill Burkett. Burkett's credentials as a source of confidential information were well established by USA Today in 2001, when he was the source for that paper's series on "ghost soldiers" in the National Guard. Burkett provided USA Today with the proof that the Texas National Guard was receiving federal funding for the training of Guardsmen who were not showing up for training, but were being signed in on rosters as if they had attended that training. Burkett subsequently disclosed (and was backed up by numerous witnesses) that he had observed Bush campaign officials in the act of purging Bush's Texas Air National Guard files, and until the Killian memo controversy, Burkett's account was considered highly credible.

Note the pattern. The Right considered Burkett a threat. They also hate CBS. And they view Michael Moore as the Antichrist. (One loopy correspondent to the Los Angeles Times claimed that Moore was the Kerry's puppet-master!)

Isn't it interesting that these three men received these questionable docs?

And isn't it interesting that within three-or-so hours of the CBS broadcast, a Republican blogger had a detailed response? Note this analysis by Rove biographer James Moore:

My suspicions about Rove's involvement in the CBS document controversy arose after the well-coordinated attack on the memos. Critics were ready with their analysis almost before CBS got off the air. And they knew precisely the forensic arguments to make. This didn't happen through simple due diligence. They were tipped in advance. And that was only possible if Rove was involved in the creation and leaking of the documents or if he got them in advance and set up his attack machine. Admittedly, this is a five cushion political bank shot, but if anybody can pull those off, it's Rove.

Now compare this suspiciously-rapid response to the tale of Bush and the earpiece, a story to which this blog has made a humble contribution. Our observations about Bush's odd behavior during the debate did not hit the net immediately, and suspicions off offstage assistance received no airing for a day or so. By comparison, the "proportional spacing" controversy received a jet-fueled assist from Drudge, who -- in his fair and balanced way -- has seen fit to ignore the "earpiece"-spotters.

CORRECTION: My correspondent wrote to tell me that he was in the Army Reserves, not the Guard: "Same obligations, but different organizations. What I said about weekend drills was true about reserve units and I am sure it was and still is true about Guard units as well. (This was/is largely because weekends are the only days that you can meet for more than 4 hours.)"