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.
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LoL! - CBS is eating their own rats (TX AG Lt Col. Bill Burkett flunky) - ping.
The more shi* CBS slings - the more shi* comes back on them.
aaaa hhhaaaaa aaahHHHaaa aaa.a.a.a.a.a.a. - soooooo SWEEEEEEET!
(The sinking of the Bismark - CBS.)
Great point!
I don't believe it. Burkett is supposedly former NG and would know military lingo. That is unless he has gone downright bonkers.
The lies just keep on coming...Rather cant help himself...
no wonder he likes Kerry so much...
Rather knew what he what he was doing...he planned on using what he thought was his
'reputation for honesty' and betrayed the trust of his audience...
He figured on sneaking this buy folks and using his big lie to take down GW Bush and elect Kerry..
He did do a good job of taking attentin away from the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth though..the focus is off them right now...and on See? B.S.
The lies just keep on coming...Rather cant help himself...
no wonder he likes Kerry so much...
Rather knew what he what he was doing...he planned on using what he thought was his
'reputation for honesty' and betrayed the trust of his audience...
He figured on sneaking this buy folks and using his big lie to take down GW Bush and elect Kerry..
He did do a good job of taking attentin away from the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth though..the focus is off them right now...and on See? B.S.
...his lawyer, van Os, will have a conflict with his other big client--the DNC.
Hellooo?
Earth calling Newsmax...
I hate Bill CLinton... he legitimized a foul technique that has us parsing words and unraveling how a statement can be both true and fundamentally fraudulent.
The slimeball had someone else do the forgeries!
Too late for that now, at least as far as Rather is concerned. There is no scenario in which Rather survives at CBS. Even if we assume CBS can successfully set up Burkett as a lone gunman patsy, he was, then, Rather's "unimpeachable" source. No way a man like Rather receives even the minimum level of trust needed to anchor a major news organization if he is going to personally run a story based on such an obviously flimsy source and contniue to label it "unimpeachable" in the face of a maelstrom of criticism based on patently phony documents.
This is a dangerous game CBS is playing, and this will likely end up being a journalism school case study of what happens when a news bureau becomes beholden to one man.
1) These are forgeries of federal documents.
2) CBS almost certainly got them from the DNC/Kerry campaign.
3) CBS not only didn't properly investigate their authenticity, but "sugarcoated" the whole story by using the forgeries and selected testimonials, while ignoring witnesses and relatives who debunked the story.
4) For the second time in five years, the Democrats have tried to steal a Presidential election.
OK, given ALL that, I want to know:
Why hasn't the FBI marched into the CBS offices, confiscated the forgeries, arrested everyone, taken them down to the station, and made them squeal like the pigs they are until the truth came out?
Sorry, rant off, but if a REPUBLICAN had done this, it would be all Bush's fault, and the Dems would be howling for his impeachment. Where is Ashcroft? Where is the FBI? Why hasn't the WH come out and said this is a CRIME and people need to be PUNISHED?
Burkett better spill the beans before those responsible find his Jack Ruby. ( I'm only half kidding )
Newsmax blew it. They didn't delve into Mr. Van Os. They should have.
and during the course of six weeks not once did CBS provide the docs and information to Kamp Kerry and the DNC so they could make Operation Fortunate Son?
CBS must still believe in the Easter Bunny.
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.
Yeah sure.....they're going to sanitize the file and just throw "incriminating evidence" into the trash can so that someone like Burkett could find it! These people are so transparent. Unfortunately with the dumbing down of most of our citizenry, the sheeple will believe this.
"This is a dangerous game CBS is playing, and this will likely end up being a journalism school case study of what happens when a news bureau becomes beholden to one man."
Astute observation Zebra! Mrs PD
Memogate: Burkett's attorney/spokesman hosted Kerry rallies in Texas
'... 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."
Until proven otherwise and this scandal deserves a serious investigation by LE to unravel all the threads-
I am of the belief that the Kerry campaign and the DNC are involved.
The ancient media would have tossed the coverage of Ivan to the back burner and would be interrupting regular programming with breathless updates-
if a scandal like this was brushing up to the RNC and the Bush campaign.
Guess the new media will have to do the heavy lifting, yet again.
That's good info, learned more from you then their basic reprint of the NY Times story.
One other thing Newsmax left out of their regurgitation; Burket seems to have a persecution complex;
In letters to state legislators and a later suit, he said he collapsed at the Abilene airport in 1998 and was "willfully and maliciously" denied military medical care by Guard officials, worsening his condition. Before finally obtaining medical benefits in July 1998, he had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for depression, he told The Times.
This guy has a history of paranoia that predates the dastardly Bush's Presidency.
Link to Burkett's Manifesto. He's way out there.
http://onlinejournal.com/bush/031903Burkett/031903burkett.html
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