Dan Rather’s Long Goodbye: Who Done It?(Mapes,Smith and Burkett)

NY OBSERVER ^ | 03/09/05 | Joe hagan

[FreedomCalls]

Uh oh!

[TheSarce]

The references to "Camp Avery" caught my eye, too. Someone was asleep at the switch, they are almost certainly referring to Camp Mabry in Austin, where Burkett was stationed and claims to have seen a bunch of Bush's files in a trash can. (Truthfully, I can see someone mis-hearing it, but it's not that hard to check, it's a known element of this story for months now.)

The stuff about the rumors being all over "Camp Avery" for years so-there-must-be-something-to-it is hysterical, because they are essentially using Burkett's rumors from while he worked at Mabry to confirm his later credibilty on the Killian memos!

Burkett made a bunch of claims of seing discarded memos back in Feb/March of 2004, months before the CBS memos, plus weird claims of having "reassembled" the trash memos. Google various combinations of "James Moore, Burkett, trash, files, reassembled" and some of the articles from Spring 2004 will surface. Including this fascinating one:
The Cleansing of Bush's Gaurd Duty: White House Ally, George Conn, Caught in a Lie [sic]

How any rational adult could not seriously question whether Burkett had somehow "reassembled" the Killian memos he conveniently produced for CBS defies belief. They have just wanted to believe it for so many years, this has cropped up every election since Bush ran for Governor the first time in '94.

Burkett was peddling a version of lost Bush memos at least in early '04, and when that didn't have the desired effect, he just HAPPENED to finally find the missing documents that would prove what they just KNEW was the truth! It's a miracle, LOL!

The disgusting thing isn't that these professional journalists are a bunch of morons--it's that they think WE are.

[Ditto]

The references to "Camp Avery" caught my eye, too. Someone was asleep at the switch, they are almost certainly referring to Camp Mabry in Austin, where Burkett was stationed and claims to have seen a bunch of Bush's files in a trash can.

Even if they screwed up the name of the post, they still need to tell us why they think a Pilot assigned to the Air National Guard at an Air Base in Houston should have been reporting to an Army Guard base in Austin?

"It was so well known for years at Camp Avery about Bush and his failure to serve in the Texas Air National Guard," he said, referring to the base where Mr. Bush had been stationed in the early 1970’s.

Perhaps we give these newsies more credit than they deserve. Hell, even if your intentions is to produce a fraud, you still need to have basic facts if you want it to be believable. These people apparently don't even know the basics.

[cyncooper]

I would like to think something would be done but don't think so.

I was so disgusted with the "panel" and its report and I don't see any activity seeking to hold these people accountable.

It's outrageous and when I think of the dems/media having fits about the RATS ad (for one example that comes to mind) and compare that phony trumped up brouhaha to this real attack on the President I could spit.

I do not expect any legal action. Unfortunately.

[cyncooper]

Burkett made a bunch of claims of seing discarded memos back in Feb/March of 2004, months before the CBS memos, plus weird claims of having "reassembled" the trash memos.

Exactly.

Rather flat out stated they had an "unimpeachable source" for these fake documents and as you note, the public record documents what type of character that source, Burkett, was. Yet the vaunted panel couldn't make the conclusions that are writ large...practically in flashing neon.

[cyncooper]

I rarely write to journalists...but I have on occasion and I think Hagan is going to hear from me on this issue of where GWB was stationed.

It's so ironic that during the recent Gannon flap the media adopted their most sanctimonious attitudes and decided to lecture us about what constitutes a "real journalist".

[Ditter]

bump for later

[Space Wrangler]

Not much of an effort was taken to find out who "Lucy Ramirez" was, and I'd be inclined to believe that Burkett just made the documents up himself if it weren't for that one little detail of the phone call from the Houston Holiday Inn. Somebody called Burkett, and it was almost certainly a dem political operative. I'm sure nothing short of a subpeona would get the guest list from that Holiday Inn on the day the phone call was made, but that could very well be the only way we'll ever know for sure who delivered the "memo's" to the fool Burkett. Hmmmm, freeper project anyone?

[cyncooper]

Here is my email to Hagan (Subject was the title of his article):

From your article:

"It was so well known for years at Camp Avery about Bush and his failure to serve in the Texas Air National Guard," he said, referring to the base where Mr. Bush had been stationed in the early 1970’s. "It was just so very, very common. You know, he didn’t even show up out there during his whole eight-year tenure as governor and commander in chief of the Texas Air National Guard—not once did he go to Camp Avery. So most people just sort of looked at him as a draft dodger. They didn’t hold him in very high regard at all."

-end excerpt-

Point of fact: George W. Bush was never stationed at "Camp Avery". In fact, I can't find a Camp Avery in Texas.

George W. Bush was stationed (and appeared and served ) at Ellington Air Force Base.

Bill Burkett, however, served at Camp Mabry.

Why is Burkett granted one shred of credibility and what kind of fact checking goes on when dealing with someone like him? It appears he is free to babble to various media and these "real journalists" for some reason have decided he does not need any vetting whatsoever. It seems clear to me that Burkett's statements have time and again been demonstrated to be false. Therefore, I would expect the average person--let alone a "real journalist"--to take what he has to say with a shaker of salt.

At any rate, a correction is in order for the assertion that George W. Bush served at this "Camp Avery" and, since he did not, also correct the slam at him for not visiting this phantom camp.

Thank you,

Name and Town

[Space Wrangler]

If I were investigating this, Burkett would be the prime suspect. He is both obsessed with Bush and demonstratively unstable enough to have fabricated the documents without considering the consequences.

True enough, but it also made him the perfect patsy to clean the true source of the documents, which I believe was either the DNC or the Kerry campaign. Burkett acting alone is certainly plausible, but someone placed that call from the Houston Holiday Inn. It could have just been an acqaintance of Burkett's and the time frame happened to work, but for some reason I just don't think Burkett was smart enough to come up with all of this on his own. "Lucy Ramirez" was probably real, and employed as a dem political operative using Burkett as the ideal mark. I also don't totally rule out that Rather and Mapes knew ahead of time that Burkett would be recieving the package, and just waited on the call from Burkett so they could press ahead with the story.

[Ditto]

There is another item I am curious about. Burkett has claimed he saw Bush's TANG records at the Austin base (Avery/Mabery), but my understanding is that unlike Army National Guard records which are retained by the state, all Air National Guard records are retained by the Department of the Air Force and archived in a US Air Force facility in Denver.

Would any of Bush's records have been retained by the state?

[TheSarce]

Even if they screwed up the name of the post, they still need to tell us why they think a Pilot assigned to the Air National Guard at an Air Base in Houston should have been reporting to an Army Guard base in Austin?

Well, while the facts are carelessly mixed and muddled in the Professional Journalist's article, Camp Mabry is not just an Army post, it's HQ for several divisions of the National Guard, including being the Headquarters of the Texas Air National Guard. From The Handbook of Texas Online:

The state adjutant general's office was moved to Camp Mabry in 1954, and the Texas National Guard State Officer Candidate School was established there in 1959. A historical marker acknowledging the contribution of Camp Mabry was dedicated in December 1972....

...The Texas National Guard Academy opened at Camp Mabry in June 1984. Also located on the post are the headquarters of the Texas Air National Guard, the Texas State Guard, the United States Property and Fiscal Office, the Texas National Guard Armory Board, the Headquarters Armory of the Forty-ninth Armored Division, a clinic, a parachute packing and storage facility, and numerous supply and warehouse facilities.

When you drive past Mabry on MoPac Expressway, the most noticeable features are two airplanes and a couple of helicopters on display. (They even string lights on them at Christmas time.) Here's a picture I found online of one of the planes here, note the Texas flag and TANG emblems on the tail:

I don't know about the assertion that Bush was actually stationed at Mabry (I suspect the reporter is melding/blurring his facts a bit and means Ellington, but I haven't followed this closely enough to say Bush was never at Mabry), but Mabry is indeed TANG HQ, and Burkett could theoretically have seen some sort of records when he was there in 1998 (not saying I believe him, just that Burkett apparently was indeed working at TANG HQ in '98 when Bush was the Governor). I think that's why he is given so much credibilty, there are so many people that see him as the link, he just must have seen something because he was there, etc., etc. It's his claim to fame in Dem circles, apparently. Were I a reporter using him as a source, I would have certainly given a heckuva lot more weight to the disbelief and denials of Killian's family than CBS did.

[cyncooper]

I got a note from Hagan saying they had made the correction. I just checked the link and here is the corrected portion:

In any case, Mr. Rigler went on to say that interviews with former National Guardsmen were leading him to believe the truth of the documents, if not their authenticity.

"It was so well known for years at Camp Mabry about Bush and his failure to serve in the Texas Air National Guard," he said, referring to the repository where Texas Air National Guard files are stored. "It was just so very, very common. You know, he didn’t even show up out there during his whole eight-year tenure as governor and commander in chief of the Texas Air National Guard—not once did he go to Camp Mabry. So most people just sort of looked at him as a draft dodger. They didn’t hold him in very high regard at all."

He continued: "The story—and I’m talking to some people at Camp Mabry—the story about the files, the non-service, the memos, stuff like that, had floated around for years. For that reason, it makes you think it’s likely true."

~snip~

[TheSarce]

Wow, way to go!

Mr. Hagan at least has more integrity than Rather and Mapes. He could have written you back telling you that even though Mabry could have been mistaken for Avery, no one has been able to prove that there wasn't a Camp Avery at some point in time (in some universe, LOL).

[KC_Conspirator]

But it did mark the point at which CBS, embattled by attacks from consumers, ideologues and politicians, stopped defending its Sept. 8 report on Mr. Bush’s National Guard service and started a massive, and somewhat panicked, clean-up.

You can add "partisan attacks" to his tombstone as well. In fact, Rather and Mapes have still claimed as late as last week that somehow, someway, they can still authenticate the memos. Dan said so on Letterman.

[KC_Conspirator]

"The road to the White House leads through the Clyde Whataburger" was the group’s joke.

Oh forgive me if I am not laughing. Like you, I find trying to knwoingly derail a presidential campaign with fraudulent documents vastly more serious than arresting Valerie Plame's husband for outing her.

These people lied and got caught. They are one of the three biggest news outlets in the country and they proved for once an all that they are a partisan organization.

[KC_Conspirator]

But Ms. Mapes was infuriated by what she considered to be a double-cross by Mr. Heyward, who had told her the private eye was strictly for searching out the source of the documents, not for investigating staff.

There is no honor among thieves, liars, and partisan demcorats apparently.

I believe that Bill Burkett typed the things up himself, CBS reporters/producers failed to authenticate the memos, and Rather was all too happy to report it because their zeal and hatred to "get Bush" trumped all. It trumped the truth. They relied on false tin-foil hat conspiracies of the loony left instead of good objective journalism.

[KC_Conspirator]

In the Sept. 18 interview and thereafter, he has maintained instead that a woman calling herself Lucy Ramirez phoned him—from a number later traced to a Holiday Inn in Houston—and instructed him to attend a livestock show, where he was handed the papers in an envelope.

Has any of this really been confirmed?

People refer to things like the "common knowledge" in the ANG (or similar) that Bush was AWOL. In fact, the sole source of this is Burkett who blames Bush for his medical bills from over a decade ago.

[KC_Conspirator]

Boy! I'm glad Rigler didn't bother us with dreary details like names when he made these claims about what "people" have said. Evidently he wasn't asked for them, either, as I don't see any reference to "Mr. Rigler refused to name the people he claims made these statements".

Yes, I notice that when this joke of an invesstigation gets to a point where their is a supposed source of certain claims, there actually is no cited source. Just rumors and innuendo, pulled out of thin air, but reported as facts. For all we know these claims came from Bill Burkett and posts on DU.

[Radioactive]

FReepers have become legendary. FReepers took down an anchor.

It was a Freeper......and it wasn't you....so it was somebody who knew type fonts and their history........that ran Dan into the can.

Just because someone is a Freeper does not make his achievement all of Free republics..........it was through his knowledge.....not mine or yours that brought down Dan.

We are not the BORG....we are not one....we are a collection of many different diciplines and personalities.

We can do a lot together...if we stop being the blogpiece of the Republicans......who by the way are not Conservative and are not for us....they are out for the party and they are all on someones list to be payed off.