Is the "Obama-killer" video a fake?

I am now semi-persuaded that the "Obama-killer" video -- a reputed tape of Michelle Obama screeching against "whitey" -- is real. But I'm also starting to wonder whether the same tape could be a fake.

If that claim sounds contradictory, read Larry Johnson's latest.

He says that a fabulously wealthy conservative financier has been shown the tape but does not possess it. Said conservative hates McCain and therefore wants to get make the tape public before the Democratic convention. He does not want McCain to face a sure loser. Our ultra-affluent conservative is thus offering a cool million to anyone who can produce the tape.

How did this gazillionaire see the thing? Karl Rove showed it to him.

Rove has been shopping it around to well-heeled Republicans: You can see this video, but you cannot own it. We don't want copies floating around. We want to hold it back until just the right moment.

And why would Rove hold these little film society gatherings? Money. He's asking rich conservatives to fund the Republican cause -- a cause which they might otherwise see as hopeless.

Rove and company reportedly are showing the tape to big money Republicans to loosen up their wallets and get new money to fund independent expenditure groups. That’s why news of this is starting to leak out. The money is being raised for 527 groups that will target the Democrats in the fall.

So far, blogland reaction has gone two ways: People either think that Johnson pulled the whole story out of his ass, or they think that the story is genuine.

A third possibility occurs to me. My mind reaches back to -- of all people -- Vicki Morgan.

"Vicki who?" some of you may be asking -- and if you are, I feel old.

Vicki Morgan, who died in 1983 at the age of 31, was the beauty at the center of one of the great sex and murder scandals.

Vicki was the mistress of Alfred Bloomingdale, friend to and funder of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. By many accounts, including her own, she sexually serviced (with her patron's approval) a number of high-ranking Reagan officials.

(Around 1990, I talked with a very gay writer of Hollywood biographies who claimed to have known Vicki well. "Her specialty was seducing homosexuals," he said -- with a wistful smile that told much and hid little.)

Now is not the time to go into the mystery of her murder, which occurred shortly after the death of Bloomingdale. Let's focus on the post-mortem controversy.

After the murder, Vicki's lawyer said that she had stockpiled video tapes of herself performing various sexual acts with Reagan's top men. Publisher Larry Flynt -- acting in his usual Flyntian fashion -- offered a million bucks for the tapes. The lawyer then reported that the tapes were stolen. Many assumed that the lawyer had concocted the whole story, although his motive for doing so was never made clear.

At that point, a certain man approached Larry Flynt. I'll call him Gordo. Some of you will know the full name. I won't reveal it here, since I've already had one mildly unpleasant run-in with this gentleman. Gordo has connections (as they say) to the American intelligence community, although the CIA will quickly tell you that they never officially hired him.

Gordo claimed to possess the stolen Vicki Morgan sex tapes. He offered them for sale to Larry Flynt.

More than that: Gordo's tapes showed Vicki boffing not just Reagan's aides, but Reagan himself.

To be specific: The tape showed Reagan receiving a "message from the rear" which Vicki delivered, using a certain plastic appendage. (An unlikely fetish, given what I know of Nancy Davis' specialty. But I digress.)

Flynt made somewhat oblique reference to these events in The Rebel, a non-porno magazine he once published. I have no idea how much, if anything, Gordo received for the tapes. But I do know that Gordo wormed his way into Flynt's entourage, becoming the man's "minister of everything," as one glossy magazine profile put it. As I recall, the old Los Angeles Herald Examiner carried a front-page story connecting Gordo to the hiring of Bill Mintzer for Flynt's security staff. (Mintzer was a hit man later convicted in the "Cotton Club" killings.)

As you may recall, Flynt seemed to go wacky during this period, wearing diapers to court and such.

Flynt showed the Vicki-and-Reagan tape to a number of people. I've read at least one first-hand account of the tape and have received several second-hand accounts. Frank Zappa, of all people, attended a private showing, which he later described during a radio interview. He had a difficult time trying to think of a polite way to give the details.

Bottom line: The tape was a fake.

That's why you can't find the thing on YouTube today.

Gordo later admitted to its fraudulent nature. He said that the tape used spot-on lookalikes for Ronald and Vicki, and that it was produced by the intelligence service of an East-bloc country. (Not the KGB.)

I don't know when or how Flynt became aware that he had been gulled.

I do know that faked video tapes of famous people have fooled some onlookers who were by no means stupid.

I also know that, in a famous paper called "The Revolution in Military Affairs," Army War College strategists Steven Metz and James Kievit discussed the wartime propaganda uses of digitally-produced videos depicting political leaders doing and saying embarrassing things.

If a fake "Obama-killer" video exists, would it fool an expert? Probably not. But the public need never see it.

According to Johnson, Rove is using the tape to fetch dollars from conservative billionaires. That's the target audience. To fulfill its purpose, the tape need only be good enough to fool them. Afterwards, it can disappear forever.