In case you hadn’t heard: No way it’ll be as focused-on as the CBS documents about Bush, but FOX News, after the debates, posted a story by a correspondent named Carl Cameron that contained completely fabricated quotes by Kerry. The text included:

Rallying supporters in Tampa Friday, Kerry played up his performance in Thursday night’s debate, in which many observers agreed the Massachusetts senator outperformed the president.

“Didn’t my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!” Kerry said Friday.

With the foreign-policy debate in the history books, Kerry hopes to keep the pressure on and the sense of traction going.

Aides say he will step up attacks on the president in the next few days, and pivot somewhat to the domestic agenda, with a focus on women and abortion rights.

“It’s about the Supreme Court. Women should like me! I do manicures,” Kerry said.

Kerry still trails in actual horse-race polls, but aides say his performance was strong enough to rally his base and further appeal to voters ready for a change.

“I’m metrosexual — he’s a cowboy,” the Democratic candidate said of himself and his opponent.

A “metrosexual” is defined as an urbane male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle.

Presently the FOX story has been edited so the made-up stuff is no longer a part of the story, and FOX added the disclaimer:

Editor’s Note

Earlier Friday, FOXNews.com posted an item purporting to contain quotations from Kerry. The item was based on a reporter’s partial script that had been written in jest and should not have been posted or broadcast. We regret the error, which occurred because of fatigue and bad judgment, not malice.

The thing is, the report had to go through an editor first. Maybe it’s just that their editing is as slipshod as much of their reporting is. And how could “fatigue” factor into a reporter actively writing a fake news story and uploading it to the web site? Even if the reporter wrote this in his spare time, it calls into question his integrity and bias concerning the topic that he covers for the network. Josh Marshall is on top of the story at Talking Points Memo.