”It’s Bur-KAY!”
Willing accomplice.
A perp, trained at the Donald Segretti School of Political Chicanery ("ratf**king"). Also, Max Cleland's buddy.
This is a DNC operation, with Max Cleland and Burkett as their
fall guys.
Hopefully, though, he'll object to being the fall guy for the whole scheme, and name some others.
the DNC was onboard as evidenced by the fortunate son commercial..........terry mcAwful was right out there saying it was Karl Rove who forged them before most dems even thought they were fake......he was ahead of the curve why? - 'cause he had his own copies? he knew they were fake early.......how?
Firing Mapes probably won't be sufficient since she in not a 'face' at CBS. Also, CBS had better handle her firing very carefully. P*ss her off, and she squeals on the whole lot of you. Viacom then steps in and the real housecleaning begins.
As such, for him not to resign or be fired should NOT be an option. The 1% of credibility he had remaining is gone - period.
I just can't see how CBS can survive this. Rather gets paid a king's ransom because of what his image on camera represents. The notion of Rather being associated with "believability and integrity" is shot to hell except for the socialist fan club. If the very product they are using to draw viewers (the news anchor) is rotten to the core, they're out of business, plain and simple. The advertising dollars will dry up as ABC and NBC start hiking their rates to make up for the new viewers they will acquire.
This is really a win-win. CBS can end the Rather regime now and re-build, or die a slow death that claims everyone's job down the line.
Burkett is very much a perp...but don't forget, these "documents" apparently received wide dissemination within the DNC. On a thread on FR last week, there was a report from Nashville, TN in early August. A low-level Kerry operative predicted that new revelations about President Bush's guard service would soon be made. As I recall, this guy is in charge of "Veterans for Kerry" in Tennessee, hardly the type who's on the daily conference call with Bob Shrum. It seems highly unlikely that this minor functionary would make those claims without some advance knowledge of the documents and/or the CBS report. I think its time for FReepers to do a little digging on ties between Mary Mapes (producer of the CBS report) and the Democratic Party....
Yep...poor ole' fool. Texas Rangers will probably arrest him soon!!!
I hope that Killian's son and/or Greg Abbott (TXAG) go after Burkett for the forgery of Killian's signature. We'll then see if Burkett is still willing to play the Patsy.
CBS may still be hiding something, particularly about a money trail in this story.
As Okie01 noted on another thread, it seems unlikely that CBS would have based their reporting solely on Burkett, especially since Burkett's credibility problems were already well known to CBS and others.
Okie01 said, " I'm guessing that Somebody may be our "unimpeachable source" who vouched for Burkett and the documents to Rather.".
There may well be another key CBS informant somewhere. However CBS may have their own reasons to wish us to believe they relied solely on Burkett.
The disclosure of the second source might prove highly embarrassing to CBS and/or the Democrats. As Mark Steyn said last week, its obvious the CBS execs were willing to take a great deal of heat in order to keep this story under wraps. Is there something they don't want us to know about their CBS news reporting?
If CBS is hiding a second source, this very public conversation with Burkett could be an act of intentional misdirection. CBS may wish the public to assume that CBS based their reporting solely on Burkett, which as Okie01 says seems unlikely. But the public conversation between Rather and Burkett could be a misdirection.
So what could it be about the second source and the CBS reporting that CBS might not want us to know? It's very interesting to note that in his synopsis of his conversation with Cleland, Burkett mentions the topic of money. Burkett is quoted as asking Cleland "if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money.". Mentioning money in this context raises the possibility that this was a pecuniary matter. Is it possible that CBS not only accepted these memos, but actually paid good money for them? This could be the embarrassing detail CBS wishes to conceal about the story. Or was there Democratic money in the mix?
The chain of events which fooled CBS into accepting these bogus documents may have required a coordinated effort on the part of several individuals. For example, someone like Burkett could have reported to Mapes that Killian complained about pressure to help Bush, or that Bush had disobeyed an order to undergo a medical exam. A second collaborator might have sent the forged memos.
Or maybe Burkett faxed the memos while Burkett's information was simultaneously being spoon-fed to CBS through Democratic back channels. CBS, anxious to get out this negative story about Bush, might have treated the collaborating sources as corroborative. Then CBS on their own initiative might have garnered the other weak collaborating evidence such as the opinions of handwriting experts and so on. (For the most part this secondary weak evidence has all been discredited by now).
There is supposedly a Yahoo board posting by Burkett claiming he gave some information to Cleland by telephone. Cleland according to Burkett was someone overtly wishing to be very aggressive in campaigning against Bush. Suppose Max Cleland went on to pass Burkett's unsubstantiated accusations on to others and the information worked its way back to Mapes through the Democrat grapevine. Certainly based only on the information we now know, the connections between Burkett, Cleland, Van Os, and CBS could scarcely have been closer. Kerry is just one step removed from Cleland.
---Before we go any further, it is necessary for the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee to disclose any and all known contacts between themselves and Bill Burkett.
Whatever the exact circumstances, this man certainly did assist in attempting to defraud the American people and everyone deserves to know if and how he was assisted by both the Kerry campaign the DNC which, after all, must have had some forewarning of this attack to prepare its disastrous "Operation Fortunate Son."
More importantly, however, what we need to establish is this: did the documents originate with Burkett, or did some other individual or group use a gullible Burkett as a conduit for fake papers, knowing that, given his past history of mental problems, he would make an easy patsy if things went wrong?---
There were earlier reports of these documents floating around the DNC as early as April, and that it was decided to pass them on to the Kerry campaign. The Kerry campaign might then have decided to save them for a possible October surprise.
In August however, the Kerry campaign was reeling from the Swift Boat attacks and is falling in the polls. They despreratly needed to change the subject. Through, possibly the Democratic Party in Texas, they make these documents available to Burkett, making him think he's discovered something big. He tries contacting the Kerry campaign and they put him on to Cleland, who pongs him back to the Kerry campaign.
Now the documents have been laundered and the Kerry campaign coordinates with CBS for the 60 Minutes spot and the DNC for operation Fortunate Son.
Burkett is just a pawn in their game.
Both: PERP for his actions in promulgating the hoax. PATSY in that the DNC/Kerry Campaign/CBS jackanapes need a fall guy.
bump this to the top!
PERP