<<That it appears in "Vanity Fair " is not proof.>>
If I see an article by three investigative reporters alleging certain facts in Vanity Fair, I believe what I read initially if the story is plausible, makes sense to me and does not contain assumptions (such as, if Saddam had the weapons, he would attack the U.S.A.) that are laughable and ridiculous. If the article is refuted by other articles, if the reporters who wrote it are shown up as frauds, liars, fabricators or otherwise discredited, I may stop believing in the story. We're at the stage now where I read the story, found nothing ridiculous or inconsistent with it, it fits what I know of Bush's character (he has lied repeatedly on a variety of subjects, from the war to his own insider trading) which means that his associates and confidantes would in all likelihood be the same kind of lying, lowlife scum as he himself is, and most importantly, none of the allegations in the article have ever been refuted. Furthermore, if absence of lawsuits is proof of anything, why weren't the three investigative reporters and the publishers of Vanity Fair sued for libel?
On balance, that is why I believe the Vanity Fair story.
<<If it happened in the real world what would have hidden it from the well motivated and litigious Gore?>>
The "well-motivated" Gore might have been well motivated by more basic needs like survival and a good, healthy and soundly based fear of "lone nut" assassins "acting alone" than by the need to park his ass in the Oval Office for four years. The "litigious" Gore? You must be smoking that locoweed again, plane. Remember, it was "Bush v. Gore," not "Gore v. Bush" that Bush and not Gore took all the way to the Supreme Court of the U.S.A.
<<What prevents it from being litigated now ?>>
"Patriotism" for official reasons, a.k.a. good healthy fear of covert operations by rogue security officers, lack of solid evidence, water under the bridge - - your guess is as good as mine.
<<Other than its totaly ficticious nature?>>
It has no "totally fictitious nature." It's a good description of what actually happened.
<<There isn't a reason for Gore to ignore any such fraud in his court appeals , he would have if he could have.>>
Sure there is. He can read the Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore, count the votes, figure out that five is more than four, and make an educated guess as to the ultimate result of any further litigation he wants to engage in over the election, if he should live long enough to hear the Supreme Court's views on the subject.
<<Suppose I found a donkey starved to death on a trail , I might consider that to be pretty good proof that that bit of trail was short of donkey food could I not?>>
or that the donkey starved to death somewhere else and was dumped there. Or suffered from some GI tract obstruction. Or metabolic disorder. But we're not really talking about dead donkeys in a dead horse saloon are we?