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.
In Dowd's column today it asked "Are Democrats Paranoid?". It then went on to quote the secretary saying the documents content was okay, but they appear to be forgeries..
See this thread. Burkett's LAWYER is the real DNC connection.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1217535/posts?page=1,50
Burkett's lawyer is a HUGE democrat fundraiser/operative.
How stupid does cBS think everyone is?
They get around the forgery charge by claiming that they were personal files.
Oh sure, the file cleaners were so stupid that they threw the documents in a trash can and didn't shred them! Even Dem operatives aren't that stupid! This story just gets funnier and funnier, why don't they just give up, admit the docs are forgeries and apologize to the public. Then fire DR and promise to never again try to influence an election--okay I'm dreaming. Mrs PD
I believe Mr. Rather's explanation about receiving the documents and the verification process that the 60 Minutes staff is held to.... what would make me think that they would lie.
It's not like Dan Rather has attended political rallies for Democrats.... or that his lovely daughter is active in Democratic party activities.... or that he'd lied about "important" things real mileposts in his life, like maybe..... finishing Marine Corp boot camp and claiming that he was a "Marine veteran". /sarcasm
I agree. Why would he take the fall himself?
MEANWHILE, 250 decorated veterans, some of whom actually served with Kerry tell first-hand stories of Kerry's treachery and lies and they are not credible. That just about wraps it up.
Yeah right, what ever.
Burkett + Barnes + DNC HQ 4.8 miles from Kinkos (has anyone confirmed that yet?)+ Fortunate son ad + talking points released quickly.
Yup. No DNC involvement there.
Anyone care to check out whos Mapes's DNC connection. She is the chick who did abu grahib (and didnt mention that the military had already been investigating it.. another situation where she forgot the facts of the story).
Mapes = DNC hit person.
I know that's how I always get rid of documents I want to disappear.
I cannot believe that Dan Rather and CBS actually thought that the American public is that stupid and depend on only them for information like we did in the 70's. These people are still stuck in a time warp when the only stations around were CBS NBC and ABC.
They're counting on Burkett not being charged with anything. If he is....
yeah this is my thinking. He came to CBS, told them about the file vetting, they said well we need some evidence. Let's say you were to type up something that looked like what the docs looked like....." He does it, now CBS will turn on him and say they were a victem. They will destroy him to gain their own reputations back. They will talk about his nervous breakdown...etc.
Dear areafiftyone,
I think that blaming it all on Mr. Burkett may not be the best idea, as he does have ties to the Texas Democrat Party, and is not non-partisan.
http://www.geocities.com/stoutdem/bb525.html
http://www.mikehersh.com/article_20.shtml
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/046126.php
From these sites, we see that Mr. Burkett has known Mr. Van Os for at least a few years, has been active in Democrat Party internal politics, and even was the head of Mr. Van Os' steering committee when Mr. Van Os ran for chairman of the Texas Democrat Party.
If the blame is put on Mr. Burkett, then the next question must be, with whom else in the Democrat Party did he work?
sitetest
How many times did SeeBS, via Blather, use the term "Unimpeachable Source" to defend the document's source. Are they so stupid as to think we are so stupid that ANYONE will forget they claimed UNIMPEACHABLE SOURCE = BURKETT??????? Shaking my head....
Why yes, Guardsmen that don't even know the military regs in effect at the time. Keep digging C=BS
Van Os just happens to be running for Supreme Court/Texas.
Can a KNOWN AND PROVEN nutjob just happen to get this guy to represent him because he forged documents?
Not!
Uhhh...point of order.
It seems as if CBS is taking this tack, "We aired this report in good faith but as it turns out we received faulty information. We didn't lie. We were simply misled."
If they do, how is this any different than what Bush Administration has been saying in regards to the intelligence they recieved that led them to go into Iraq?
If CBS says it, they were simply misled, no harm no foul.
If GWB says it, the response is, "Bush LIED!"
A DEMOCRATIC guardsman, that is...
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