So Burkett is now connected to: Moore, Cleland, and through Cleland the Kerry Kampaign. Who works in Kerry's research department? Perhaps the NY Times or WaPo lurkers here could dig up that info? :)
By pointing the finger to the Kerry Kampaign, Cleland is trying to avoid that nasty little possibility of conspiracy, of forgery charges. Think he was afraid that Burkett may have already bragged to someone that he passed the info to Cleland.
Another thought - Cleland had quite a bit of press coverage when he performed his stunt in Crawford. Wonder if there is a photo or video of him meeting with Burkett?
Also from that washigntonpost article:
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."
Something's afoot. Earlier tonight Joe Trippi was on MSNBC complimenting Free Republic, and Buckhead and TankerKC by name, for their "legitimate questions". Yes, he offered some whacko theory on how the documents came to be, but I and others noted he had adopted a tone of reasonableness. To say the least, it was jarring and I and others figure he sees an investigation coming and coming quick. I ascribe the same motive to Cleland.
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.
communications director Stephanie Cutter, communications aide Katie McCormick Lelyveld, research director Mike Gehrke and spokesman Chad Clanton, who heads the campaign's rapid response group
In fact, according to a Kerry campaign volunteer, staff members and volunteers of the Kerry campaign in New York, Washington, and Los Angeles have been in almost constant contact with MoveOn.org staffers, including advanced viewing and reviews of MoveOn.org television commercials, online ads, and web content. As well, MoveOn.org staffers provided the Kerry campaign with opposition research within the past two months, as well as advance looks at speeches made by MoveOn.org speakers, including former Vice President Al Gore.
"We're always running into those guys," says a Kerry campaign volunteer in Washington, about MoveOn.org staffers. "We socialize with them, we see them at meetings, we can't avoid it. And of course we talk about the campaign. In some cities, we get our volunteers from MoveOn. No one has ever raised an issue about it."
In some cases, it isn't just volunteers that the Kerry campaign is getting from MoveOn.org. They are hiring them too. In April, the Kerry campaign hired MoveOn's special projects and research director Zach Exley to oversee Kerry's campaign's website. At the time, the Kerry campaign made a point of saying that Exley was joining the campaign with not a single scrap of paper or computer disk from his time with MoveOn.
But Exley didn't need to bring much. According to another Kerry adviser, there were already so many back-channel relationships between the two organizations, Exley's presence to foster more was unnecessary. "As soon as it was clear Kerry had the nomination, we began coordinating. It's all done through the DNC and the AFL-CIO, which is financing many of the other groups out there running anti-Republican advertising. We will sit on conference calls, but we won't take part. We just take notes, then confer with our folks inside the DNC. That's the way it's done."
Burkett is tied in to Michael Moore or some other Moore?