Sometimes you have to read the REALLY fine print.

My senior-citizen mother received an anti-Jim-Talent ad in the mail today. The front looks like a big oil barrel, with Jim Talent's face on it, and the assertion "While we pay at the pump Jim Talent voted to give oil companies $14 billion in tax breaks."

But it's the back that's most interesting. It has a supposed newspaper clipping with the headline "Exxon CEO's Pay Package Up 33% in '05." Almost all of the rest of the article is covered by two official looking supposed government forms.

It is these forms that you should examine closely, should you receive this mailing.

They try to show a paper trail between Jim Talent, Halliburton, and Exxon. They even highlight those areas with magnifying glasses and yellow highlighter.

But take a look at the rest of those forms. They don't seem to have anything to do with Jim Talent at all.

The one on the left is between Representative Chris Cannon, candidate for district 3 in Utah, and Representative Richard W. Pombo's "Pombo for Congress" (I can't quite make out the abbreviation; it's for either Georgia 11 or California 11) in Alexandria, Virginia.

The one on the right might have something to do with Jim Talent; one part is obscured by the magnifying glass. What you CAN read points to Lynn A. Westmoreland, candidate for Georgia (again or California) 3.

Did the Missouri State Democratic Committee fake these documents by plastering Jim Talent's name in their little "magnified" areas but forget to make the same changes to the rest of each document?

I tried to scan them and let you see them for yourself, but my computer siezed up on me in the middle of doing it. I'll try and get them scanned for you.

In the meantime, if you don't get one and want to see it, I have the one sent to my mother and would be happy to show it to you.