Who Was the CBS Forger? - (Why no investigation?)

A.I.M.ORG ^ | APRIL 15, 2005 | SHERRIE GOSSETT

[CHARLITE]

Now that the brouhaha over Dan Rather's "Memogate" scandal is no longer front-and-center in the national media, one has to wonder why there's been no closure to the issue of the documents themselves. Bill Burkett, the supplier of the documents to CBS, changed his story on the source of the documents, ultimately claiming that one "Lucy Ramirez" gave them to him. No one even knows who Lucy Ramirez is, if she exists of if she's another figment of Burkett's imagination. Surely, a scoop on where the documents came from would be huge. Reporters, even those at CBS could be working on this story themselves. Doing so would give the image at least of contrition and dedication to getting to the bottom of the story. A reporter who broke this scoop would put his or her name on the map. So why has there been not even a single indication of effort in this direction?

[Arrowhead1952]

"They know Burkett created the fakes..."

Do you believe that it was Burkett all along?....and that he just made up the story about the woman who "handed them to him" at some cattle show?

I'd put my bets on LTC Dennis Adams (RET), or CW4 George Conn (RET) as the prime suspects. We didn't call the Warrant officer "George the Conn Man" for the sport of it.

[roses of sharon]

Dan and Mary Mapes, his producer, and Burket all faked them.

After working the story for years, they decided to forgo caution and urgently get the story out to counter the Swift Boat Vets.

It was a gamble worth taking to get rid of Bush who they perceived as dangerous, so they were willing to take a chance.

It was a good bet for them, it would have worked but for a Freeper.

They knew NO other news org, ie Dem org, would check it out because it was Bush.

So they were completely unworried.

[swilhelm73]

I think that is a fundamental point.

Looking at it in the most favorable light possible for Mapes and Rather, they knew the documents were probably fakes - since their own experts questioned the validity of the documents.

But they were counting on it taking a while, if ever, before enough credible evidence to show them to be fakes to make it into the public consciousness. Look at Rather's insistence that Bush "answer the charges" even when it had been revealed these were fakes.

And up until a few years ago they would have gotten away with it. Bringing together font, typewriter, and TANG experts would just have taken too long and any such effort to closely tied to the Republican party to stop the fakes from deciding the election.