Posted on 09/12/2004 12:26:09 AM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
Sept. 20 issue - The rap on Mary Beth Cahill, ... is the wrong person to guide the fortunes of Sen. John Kerry during this hypernasty political season. Maybe so, but hers was among the first congratulatory calls Ben Barnes received ....
.....Where did the documents come from? CBS won't say. But the trail pieced together by NEWSWEEK shows that in a sulfurous season like this one, the difference between obscurity and power is small, and anyone can get a hearing. A principal source for CBS's story was Bill Burkett, a disgruntled former Guard officer who lives in Baird, Texas, who says he was present at Guard headquarters in Austin in 1997, when a top aide to the then Governor Bush ordered records sanitized to protect the Boss. Other Guard officials disputed Burkett's account, and the Bush aide involved, Joe Allbaugh, called it "absolute garbage." Burkett may have a motive to make trouble for the powers that be. In 1998, he grew gravely ill on a Guard mission to Panama, causing him to be hospitalized, and he suffered two nervous breakdowns. He unsuccessfully sued for medical expenses.
Still, in theory, Burkett may have had access to any Guard records that, in a friend's words, "didn't make it to the shredder." Fellow officers say he wasn't a crank, but rather a stickler for proper procedurea classic whistle-blower type. Burkett was impressive enough to cause CBS producer Mary Mapes to fly to Texas to interview him. "There are only a couple of guys I would trust to be as perfectly honest and upfront as Bill," says Dennis Adams, a former Guard colleague. The White House, through Communications Director Dan Bartlett, called Burkett a "discredited source." Indeed, Bush strategists are convincedor have convinced themselvesthat the issue will backfire on its purveyors...
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Mystery solved.
I would tend to agree...except for one teeny, weeny, little thing.
Say you are Dan Rather, or the CBS producer, Mary Mapes. Are you buying what Burkett's selling? Given your ragin biases, you'd want to, sure. But would you trust Burkett enough to grant him "umimpeachable source" status? Indeed, enough to stake your professional reputation on his crapped-out credibility?
The left is desperate, be be sure. But are they that desperate?
Even if Burkett is the "source" of these memos, somebody else would be vouching for him. Somebody hefty enough that Rather can trust enough to go out on a limb for him...
If Burkett plays a part in these memos, then the key to his reasoning is crucial to understand how and why he obtained these phoney documents.
Bill Burkett in his own words.
Which is now!
*****************************************
Sounds suspiciously like Bill Burkett...
Is the Open Society institute that organization of Karl Popper's disciples who have little if anythingin common with Mr. Popper himself?
First I've heard of his name
You think that whoever at CBS decided to take the flyer, maybe saw Burkett as a fusible link, a sacrificial source if it went south?
No .. I think he is involved .. I just think some higher ups at CBS are going to pass the buck and make sure someone else gets blamed for this
I think we ought to take it out on Les Moonves, and then on his way out the door he can tell us where he thinks we might profitably make some changes down the wiring diagram.
Newsweek's article -- I presume it was Isikoff's, who is a good journalist as his performance in Monicagate shows -- made the point that Burkett is a classic Dudley Do-Right, whistleblower type. If he got a burr under his saddle at Governor Bush and his political types (Joe Allbaugh is a certified Bush Kool-Aid drinker deluxe), then yes, he'd be like a dog with a bone, and it wouldn't mean he's nuts. Let's be fair. He isn't impartial, and he may even be biased, but careful about saying he's "delusional", if he says he was in the room when the political people started talking about scrubbing Bush's service file.
Because, let's face it, there was something to scrub -- that order to report to the Denver ARF office, which I looked at, nobody is contesting as a genuine document, and likewise his separation paper from the Texas ANG. Bush either booted or gundecked his last year of obligation to the ANG, in order to help someone out in an Alabama campaign, and then to enroll in Harvard. The degree to which Bush took his ANG obligation seriously is fairly open to question on the extant documentation, and so it isn't outside the realm of possibility that Burkett attended a meeting of the character that he claims took place. Bush admits he took his life less seriously than he should have when he was younger, and it's understandable that Bush's political people would have their hair on fire if they found out that a fat file was still extant that had uncomplimentary fitness reports, administrative thundergrams, and various other signs of official displeasure in it.
If Bush and his political aides decided not to go the full-hangout route about his drinking and goofing off, that was their decision. I think it was a mistake, given Bush's reconstruction of his life later on, but people will differ. But the point is, none of this (yet) warrants taking it out on Burkett, if he bristled and decided to be a pain in the ass over issues he had with Bush's performance.
Now, if Burkett is finally the source of the forged memos (but see Dallas Mike's post above), then all bets are off -- hang him high. But not yet.
Much appreciated.
Bev Harris and Talion return to see if Freepers have pockets as deep as those at DU :
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/3487281/posts?page=35
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