The DNC works hard to prove the GOP's talkingpoints

If it's not a forgery, then the DNC does have a lot of morons working for them.

But whoever thought it was a bright idea to dredge up an 18-year old mob case that Alito tried, and lost, as U.S. Attorney -- and then stick it in the freaking lead, no less -- really should find another way to make a living, because oppo research definitely isn't their forte. Insinuating that Scalito is mobbed up is suicidally deranged unless you've got the goods to prove it, and it's obvious that the Rove wannabes who wrote this particular set of talking points had no evidence of anything other than their own stupidity.

The fact that the document plays directly into the Rovian canard du jour -- that all criticism of Scalito is racist -- immediately made me suspect yet another convenient forgery. And so it may be, although the meta data embedded in the Word file appears to trace directly back to the DNC research department. (Three letters for you people: P-D-F.) On the other hand, I'm told meta data can be easily faked, and God knows we've seen enough clumsy forgeries lately to be justifiably suspicious.

However, in this case there's an easy way for Howard Dean to resolve the issue: Either repudiate the document as a forgery, or admit ownership, retract it and then fire everybody responsible for producing it. And the sooner the better. It would not only be the right thing to do, but also the smart thing, since people capable of making such a boneheaded mistake undoubtedly have even bigger catastrophes in their futures.

Assuming the damn thing is authentic -- and I've got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that it is -- it's hard not to despair over the prospects for stopping the Scalito nomination. I mean, this is can't-anybody-here-play-this-game kind of stuff. Here we have a judicial nominee who is somewhere to the right of Darth Vader (at least on the gun issue), who backs strip searches for little 10-year-old girls, who believes the word "women" is a contraction of "wombs for men," and who would probably approve of a corporate employment policy that required black men to dress up in jockey costumes and stand outside on the lawn holding little lanterns. And the DNC has to drop hints that the bastard is too soft on the Mafia?