Suppose that Rathergate had been postponed until the Sunday before the election. Had Senator Kerry not been running so poorly in the polls right after Labor Day, CBS might well have delayed release of its forged documents until the last minute, when there would scarcely have been time for them to be exposed and discredited. Intrinsically trivial though questions about President Bush’s National Guard service were, the charges aired by Sixty Minutes, like the DUI roorback in 2000, would have swayed some voters. All that would have been needed to change the outcome were fewer than 100,000 switches in Ohio.
So John Kerry would be President-elect, very likely without a popular vote majority, but Republicans can’t complain about that. Then, inevitably, proof would have emerged that his victory was founded on a blatant fraud.
Republicans haven’t been as emotional about this election as Democrats. There are few, if any, Kerry Haters to match the legion of Bush Haters. Nonetheless, forbearance has its limits. There would certainly have been an uproar, and the Kerry Administration would have been poisoned from the start. In time of war, that is not a good condition for the nation’s commander-in-chief.
These considerations explain why investigating the CBS fraud and punishing its instigators remains important. It was not merely a lark or a misjudgement; it was a serious threat to constitutional government. The perpetrators ought not to be allowed to elude justice.
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