This WaPo Dobbs reporter guy, (British accent, you've seen him on tv), has just broken the case! Quite amazing! Now you read this and see if I don't have it exactly right in my own mind.
Sometime after Burkett made the tv rounds in February, he came up with the forged documents. (I think he would have used the forged documents then, if he'd had them, don't you? ) I think he created the documents himself.
Burkett told a Yahoo discussion group he had contacted the DNC with dirty tricks ideas. We don't know if Burkett sent the DNC the documents, or just told them he had something valuable. When he didn't hear back from the DNC, he called Max Cleland. (We have to find out how he got Cleland's cell phone number..my guess is from his lawyer, Os.)
Cleland told Burkett to contact the [Kerry] campaign. We need to know who Burkett contacted in the Kerry campaign, and we have to know who in the Kerry campaign made the decision to give the documents to CBS.
Dan Rather called his source for the documents, "unimpeachable". That's because his source was the Kerry Campaign, and it looks like Rather will go to the mat to avoid disclosing he got the forged documents from the Kerry Campaign.
If they were great forgeries, Dan Rather and Mapes wouldn't come off looking so partisan, so eager to destroy Bush. But they are bad forgeries, that competent, honest journalists would never use. And now we know too, that Rather intentionally presented a dishonest, biased report on 60 Minutes, omitting Killian's wife, son, and the experts who warned the documents were fakes.
Rather has got to go.
Washington Post ace Michael Dobbs continues to do more great work breaking Memogate wide open:
The former Texas National Guard officer suspected of providing CBS News with possibly forged records on President Bush's military service called on Democratic activists to wage "war" against Republican "dirty tricks" in a series of Internet postings in which he also used phrases similar to several employed in the disputed documents. [...]
In e-mail messages to a Yahoo discussion group for Texas Democrats over the past few months, Burkett laid out a rationale for using what he termed "down and dirty" tactics against Bush. He said he had passed his ideas to the Democratic National Committee but that the DNC seemed "afraid to do what I suggest."
In another message, dated Sept. 4, Burkett hinted he might have had advance knowledge of some details in an explosive segment that aired Sept. 8 on the CBS News program "60 Minutes." [...]
"I believe that Bush knows that there is more coming out than Ben Barnes," Burkett wrote. "No proof, just gut instinct."
In an Aug. 13 essay for a liberal web site called OnlineJournal.com, Burkett hinted again that President Bush was going to be attacked. This time he was more specific:
Americans will get through the gotchas of the preemptive strike from the Republican swift boat crews who want to elevate obviously flimsy charges in order to immunize Americans from more Bush assaults. The Bush assaults are rumored to finally close the issue of Bush's disappearance from his Air National Guard duty in Alabama; efforts and methods to falsify and cover up Bush problems in his files; and the obvious disciplinary actions that led to his grounding from flying. Both sides will count on the electorate to sicken of this style and leave the real meat on the table untouched.
As documented in most recent polls, the real issues of Iraq have already required enough Maalox for most Americans. Most Americans don't like war. They are rapidly moving their focus to their domestic issues of jobs, healthcare and education.
Burkett elaborated on his thoughts in an Aug. 31 posting not printed in the Post:
While some of us pine for the return of Bill CLinton, that's not the real answer. Many of us have risked everything on this election. And the disappointment is deep and difficult to manage.
But we fight on, inspite of incompetance at the top.
The truth probably is that many of the insiders simply didn't think to chekc someone out in Texas. Does that mean they won't check out those that submit themselves for key positions, as well. That's what we all think.
CBS has said that it obtained its controversial documents within the last few weeks. It may have received them from Burkett following the latter's unsuccessful attempts to pass them on to former Democratic senator Max Cleland who traveled to Texas in late August. Before Cleland's trip, Burkett had telephoned the ex-senator saying that he had damaging information about Bush. He was told to pass this information along to the Democratic National Committe but, according to the Post, national hq was less than enthusiastic.
In an Aug. 21 posting, Burkett referred to a conversation with former senator Max Cleland (D-Ga.) about the need to counteract Republican tactics: "I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. He said counterattack. So I gave them the information to do it with. But none of them have called me back."
Cleland confirmed that he had a two- or three-minute conversation by cell phone with a Texan named Burkett in mid-August while he was on a car ride. He remembers Burkett saying that he had "valuable" information about Bush, and asking what he should with it. "I told him to contact the [Kerry] campaign," Cleland said. "You get this information tens of times a day, and you don't know if it is legit or not."
Update 00:48 A long-time associate of Burkett's is James Moore, a former reporter for CBS's Houston affiliate, KHOU. Since 1994, Moore has been hounding Bush over his National Guard service. Eventually, he left "objective" journalism and has since become a part of the anti-Bush cottage industry that has sprung up following Bush's emergence as a national figure. He is the author of two books on the president, Bush's Brain and Bush's War for Reelection.
While researching his second book, Moore received assistance from Burkett who provided him with a number of documents which Moore used to make the case that Bush had acted dishonorably during Vietnam. Some of these documents were given to CBS News which used them in a Feb. 12 report which relayed Burkett's charges that Bush had instructed staff members to destroy documents which cast doubt on his Guard service.
Mary Mapes, the producer of CBS's Sept. 8 report which relied on the controversial Memogate documents likely was the recipient of these papers since, according to the network, she has been working on the Bush Guard story for the past five years. Mapes is also based in Dallas.
From what I can gather from researching ... they didn't have the documents in Feb .. but were in search of them.
James Moore shares Devine's view that Bush's faith -- in God and in his own policies -- is misplaced. In Bush's War for Re-Election: Iraq, the White House, and the People (Wiley, $37.99), Moore, co-author of the bestselling Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, castigates Bush's wartime leadership...
Through interviews with soldiers and family members of those who died in battle, Moore conveys the deep resentment toward Bush felt by at least some military families. Moore also conducted revealing interviews with former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, former Sen. Max Cleland and Bill Burkett, a lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard and a frequent Bush critic.
78 posted on 09/17/2004 11:42:47 PM CDT by Dolphy (Support swiftvets.com)
>>>Sometime after Burkett made the tv rounds in February, he came up with the forged documents. (I think he would have used the forged documents then, if he'd had them, don't you? ) <<<
No. I think maybe these were supposed to be saved for an October surprise but the success of the SwiftVet ads forced them to use the memo's sooner.
I can't figure out when he got the job, but he had it in August. Cleland is Co-chairman of the Kerry-Edwards campaign.