Could be. If there truly was any type of conspiracy the major players would leave themselves an out. Burkett makes the perfect patsy. I'm not buying into this, but it's fun to speculate. It's a turd, surrounded by bull$hit, buried under a dung heap.
The tenor of the article seems to be putting distance between sKerry and Burkett, which makes me suspicious that it came from his campaign. However, given that the memo was faxed from near Burkett's house, maybe Jenjis John was smart enough to just broker the transaction between Rather and Burkett. I think that either way, they clearly knew this was coming, though.