Posted on 09/16/2004 9:11:36 AM PDT by areafiftyone
CBS is trying to pin the Rathergate forgery rap on former National Guard officer Bill Burkett - who has no prominent ties to the Kerry campaign or the Democratic Party.
According to the New York Times, as CBS was preparing to admit that documents aired by news star Dan Rather might have been fabricated, "a person at the network named Mr. Burkett as a source of records critical of Mr. Bush's Vietnam era service that CBS said last week came from the personal files of Lieutenant Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian."
So far Burkett has not responded. And he rebuffed a Times reporter who showed up at his Baird, Texas ranch yesterday.
But the former Guardsman's San Antonio lawyer, David Van Os, told the Times, "The possibility that Bill Burkett would falsify documents or falsify any story is zero."
The paper inexplicably characterized Os's denial as a refusal to answer.
Burkett, however, has been complaining for years that he saw documents from President Bush's National Guard file being tossed in the trash in 1997, with top Bush aide Joe Albaugh allegedly overseeing the file clean-up.
In the last weeks of the 2000 election, he went public with his story for the first time - but failed to produce any records, forged or otherwise, to back it up.
When Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe resurrected the Bush Guard story last February, Burkett was in the spotlight again.
He told the Dallas Morning News that Allbaugh ordered the National Guard chief in Texas to get the Bush file and make certain "there's not anything there that will embarrass the governor."
A few days later, said Burkett, he saw Bush's file and documents from it discarded in a trash can. He said he recognized the documents as retirement point summaries and pay forms.
But he made no mention at the time of any memo from Bush's commander, Lt. Col. Killian, who, in the Rathergate forgery, complained about orders to "sugacoat" Bush records.
Unnoted in today's Times report fingering Burkett was the most telling non-denial to surface so far in the Rathergate imbroglio - a refusal by an unnamed senior CBS executive to deny that Rather got the Killian forgery from the Kerry campaign.
According to Sunday's New York Post, the network exec said he "couldn't answer that question," then hung up.
Also overlooked - an intriguing detail cited repeatedly over the last two days by radio host Sean Hannity from Saturday's Dallas Morning News report on Rathergate.
"Earlier this year," reported the paper, "Kerry aides raised the exact points the memo seemed to address."
The evidence of a Kerry connection may be scant so far - but it's a whole lot more persuasive then efforts by the Times and CBS to turn Bill Burkett into Rathergate's fallguy.
does seeBS think they cant just (finally) say "OK they were forged" and that will be the end of it?
Dan Blather ran with this and lied about it for a week.
Dan Blather should be fired for sinking seeBS's credibility to ZERO
Did he run with the Swift Boat veterans story and defend it with such gusto?
So CBS is going to throw Burkett under the bus to protect Barnes the DNC and Rather.
If he admits to it, or they can definitively tie this to Burkette, he should be arrested immediately. Forging Federal documents is a felony.
But frankly what CBS should be frightened out of its wits by is the following (taken from the DrudgeReport): "And in the nation's top market, New York, Rather finished not only behind NBC NIGHTLY NEWS and ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT -- but also pulled less audience than reruns of the SIMPSONS, WILL & GRACE and KING OF QUEENS." Mr. Dan, Good-night and Good-bye.
Seriously folks, the most critical outcome from this entire issue is to tie the DNC to these documents. Hannity and FOX must keep focused on this fact.
If Burkett is the source and I say "if" then CBS lied again saying that the documents came from a source close to Killian and came from his personal files. How the hell would Burkett have access to Killian's personal files when he died in 1984, Killian was Air guard and Burkett was Army guard
I believe the official line is "forged but accurate".
Well Burkett is a Bush hater and a couple bricks short of a full load now isn't he???
Doesn't excuse the sloppy and/or cavalier vetting of the bogus docs by See-BS now does it...
He's been outed and he has less credibility than a screen door on a submarine!
Time for Blather to retire!
And take the other two clowns from ABC & NBC with ya...
Semper Fi,
Kelly
Odds are MSM will now focus on Burkett(and no farther) even though he's working for the Kerry Kampaign!
Does the Bush National Guard hoo ha carry any weight with any voters besides Democrats? Undecided's?
I know I don't care, I'm focused on more important issues like survival and terrorism, anti-Americanism, treason and left wing cultural and media hegemony and it's effects on my future.
Quoting Freeper Cboldt:
So far, nobody on this board has posted a credible citation for the proposition that CBS and Dan Rather are guilty of anything more than defaming GWB (not criminal. civil liability only) and journalism fraud (not criminal, self-policed by the so-called journalism profession. Did you know Mike Barnicle is still working?).
I have looked at forgery law from many angles, and forgery of history is not illegal. No present legal rights, or legal records (e.g., title to vehicles) are affected by these forgeries. The only thing possibly affected, if one believed the forgeries were authentic, is a voter's decision. That isn't vote fraud - we are fed lies all the time about candidates, and that is not vote fraud.
So, what I ask is if you have or see a credible and sufficiently detailed citation (statute, case law) for the proposition that a crime has been committed, let me know.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1216465/posts?page=133#133 <-- Read on from here
Odds are MSM will now focus on Burkett(and no farther) even though he's working for the Kerry Kampaign!
Me thinks that Mr. Burkett will crack - he seems pretty fragile - we can then sit back and watch this scheme unravel as he turns on CBS.
Burkett is a Dem operative & so is his lawyer Van Os....those facts cannot be hidden so matter how SeeBS & Rather try to spin it!
Also Rather's daughter is a TX Dem activist.
If he, as an officer, did see the file and documents in the trash and did nothing, he was stupid to say the least. Every officer and NCO KNOWS files and documents are shredded, not discarded in trash cans.
CoverupBS
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.