The best-case scenario is that CBS stonewalls for about two weeks, after which the other networks break with big stories about the forgery. Most people who watched the 60 Minutes report don't yet know that there's a serious controversy, and will be stunned when they see the proof of forgery become widely accepted. If that happens in the next few days, there will be time for the Kerry campaign to recover, or at least to avoid responsibility. If that happens in two weeks, there will be no chance of recovery.
Partisan political operatives would have trickled out the revelations for a while, letting the story build and build. The web is just too fast to milk it.
Kerry's no ordinary fool. He'll come up with something even funnier and dumber by the end of the week, and Dan the Man will run with it.