Posted on 09/16/2004 8:19:10 PM PDT by Cableguy
BAIRD, Tex., Sept. 16 -- For half a dozen years, Bill Burkett has lived a pretty uneventful life in this tiny West Texas town. He and his wife are regulars at the Whistle Stop Cafe, ordering bacon cheeseburgers with jalapenos and fries or the pork chop special on Mondays. He "visits," as people like to say in these parts, with other ranchers over coffee at the Callahan County Farmer's Co-Op. And like other polite locals, he drops in on the local elected officials to introduce himself.
He is, by most accounts, a nice man who, in an overwhelmingly Republican-voting area, might be seen as somewhat eccentric for his Democratic bias
"I've made comments to him like, 'I think there's only two Democrats left in Callahan County, and I'm both of them,' " said Pete Mendez, 65, a retired federal firefighter who has lived in the county all his life. " 'It's three of us, if that's the way you look at it' is kind of what he's said."
Despite several requests, Burkett has said nothing publicly since Wednesday, after he was named in news reports as a possible source of the disputed documents CBS News's "60 Minutes" used in a Sept. 8 broadcast that said President Bush received preferential treatment while he was in the Texas Air National Guard.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I've done a little lurking tonite at DU:
Here is an experpt of one of their threads:
Dear Ms. xxxxx,
Thank you for taking the time to write. Your support is appreciated. As you can imagine, we've been inundated with negative emails. It's refreshing to hear from a viewer such as yourself. We strive for the highest level of journalistic integrity and will continue to do so, no matter what the cost. A free society demands free, unmuzzled media expression.
CBS Evening News
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Saturday, September 11, 2004 2:38 PM
To: CND Evening News
Subject: Dan Rather is Heroic
Dear Mr. Rather,
What you have done is not only brave but patriotic. It's time the media in this country stopped acting as a propaganda arm of the
cabal in the White House and started telling
truth and facts to the American people.
These facts about AWOL should have come out
strongly while he was running before the election of 2000 instead of the media acting as cheerleaders for him and for the phony Iraq "imminent danger" war . It should be made clear that the Iraq war declared by this administration had nothing to do with the attack on the WTC.
Because of the propaganda of the WH which the media repeated, 60% of the American people who only get their news from tv, believe
Iraq was responsible for the attack on the WTC.
Please continue to do real and honest reporting.
You seem to be the only one.
Thank you again for your heroic bravery.
xxxxxxxx
Florida
And a loner...
"Excitable boy," they all said. Well he's just an excitable boy.
Bill Burkett is not being described as a "nice man" among the old media journalists. They're talking like he has grudges and takes his grudges to court and sues people who offend him, and changes his story, ala john kerry, and so on. What I heard today, anyway.
Smacks of the "he was such a nice boy" reports you get after some kid has sprayed the playground with a 12 guage.
"Many of us have risked everything on this election," Burkett said in a message posted on Aug. 31.
There it is.
Now the only thing left is to know how many and who the others are who "risked everything".
Hahahahahahaha.
Makes it much easier to live in the two Americas I suppose.
The Shadow knows.
I think the answer is yes. I wish everyone on this site would refer to Rather as Crazy Dan. I wrote a letter to my CBS affiliate and that is the way that I referred to Rather. He is starting to act Nixonian. When he said that if the documents are forged I would like to break that story, then that is a clue that the pressure has gotten to him. Scarborough and Buchanan were making fun of him tonight and said How stupid can he be?
He was born a poor black child....
I've just been lurking over at DU. Maybe there really are two Americas--because they certainly don't live in the one I do. All they seem to talk about is how courageous Dan Rather is, and how the "forgery issue" is just a distraction cooked up by Rove, and how the "liberal" media is covering up for the White House.
I could find no mention of the new Gallup poll.
The Post may be trying to get Burkett's trust with a favorable story so that they can get him to agree to be interviewed, but that is not going to happen, because as the expression goes he is too lawyered up for that.
And you must certainly don't want to trust one with BOTH your wife AND your towels.
Well regarded? Seems to be a nutcase if you ask me.
To the Washington Post: You picked up the ball briefly, but it looks like you dropped it again. Shame on you. To the showers with you.
These high praises do not fit any liberal I know.
A Boston Globe reporter on H&C tonight said he checked Burkett out for a story he would have loved to run with, but found him not credible. He went further, said any one using Burkett for a source, had better check things very carefully. In short, Burkett AKA a liar.
And Chris Matthews wasn't very impressed with him, either.
And one other thing -- this guy is constantly complaining of death threats, and said he got some in just the past day. Has he bothered to file police reports on any of these death threats? After all, if he's as well-liked in his town as this article is spinning, why wouldn't the cops want to help him?
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