Okay, let's pull this all together with all the appropriate sources.
- Rather spoke at a Fundraiser in Texas for Travis County Democrats. (See above link)
- Rather's daughter is heavily involved with this Democratic group. (See above link)
- The forged memo was apparently faxed to CBS from a Kinkos in Texas. See Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24635-2004Sep15.html
- Bill Burkett, was interviewed by Mary Mapes for the CBS/Rather story. See CBS' site: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/13/politics/main600330.shtml. He is a Texas democrat who has had an axe to grind against Bush for a long time. Here are some excerpts from a few of his peices. See http://michael-friedman.com/archives/000139.html
- Years ago, in 1997, Burkett had actually told a left leaning journalist that he saw the Bush memos in the trash. See http://www.calpundit.com/archives/003249.html. This journalist himself now seems skeptical of the CBS story. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004672.php
- Bill Burkett's laywer, who is also speaking out, is running as a judge in Texas. He is a left wing Democrat. On his website he slams Karl Rove, saying, "We Texans have a chance this year to fight back hard against Karl's plan to steal away the people's government from the people. Placing David Van Os on the Texas Supreme Court will be one of Karl's worst nightmares. We the people have the power to make it happen." See his website: http://www.vanosforsupremecourt.com/
- Marian Knox, the aid to Killian who claims that the forged memos represent Killian's true feelings regarding Bush is also a partisan Democrat. She has previously stated that she didn't have any firsthand knowledge of Bush's service in the guard. See: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2796630
Clearly, Rather has links the Democratic party in Texas. The forged memos have links to these same Texas democrats. In light of full disclosure Dan Rather should come right out and admit his bias and his links to the Democratic party. He should also reveal ALL of the sources - not just the partisan democrats, e.g., Killian's family who say their father didn't feel the way Knox describes.
But Rather won't. Any fairminded person can see the bias.
What I've done here is real journalism. Hello ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX, New York Times, LA Times, etc.?!! This is a breaking scandal and us "bloggers" are scooping you. Shameful.
Help send this article to news outlets: feedback@msnbc.com hardball@msnbc.com joe@msnbc.com special@foxnews.com oreilly@foxnews.com hannity@foxnews.com
Also log onto ABC, CNN and others and send them the link! Thanks.
You're good... verrry good!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1218004/posts
THE DEMOCRATIC VIRTUAL MACHINE OF TEXAS
Various | September 16, 2004 | PretzeLogic
Ben Barnes is on the Finance Council of the Travis County Democratic Party
http://www.traviscountydemocrats.org/financecouncil.php?TCDP_Session=3b4da07baec1fc48156ed9472aa8e822
I also saw something recently that said he was a Director of the Travis County Dem Party in the past, but can't find it now, grrrr...
Nice compilation of articles, but I must be missing something here - what is the connection? The only common terms are "Texas" and "Democrats".
This is as tenuous as the NYT chart tying the SwiftVets to the President. Except in their case, the only common terms were "Texas" and Republican.
You've compiled some great resources, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Nothing you've posted refutes the simplest explanation: Bill Burkett simply fabricated the documents himself to bolster a story he had been trying to peddle for years.