CBS defense of Rather hints at bigger story [Freeper Buckhead Scoops Rather!]

SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST ^ | September 19, 2004 | MARK STEYN

[68skylark]

Did they really write that?

It's hard to believe, isn't it? Here's a link to the story:

Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says

The Times is very lucky that CBS is the focus of this scandal right now. If everyone at CBS weren't acting like total morons, then the focus would shift to include other news sources -- like the Times -- that have behaved just as badly.

[Dr Snide]

Steyn is fast becoming one of my favorite writers, I use to consider his end of the issue column in National Review a throw away but its the first place I look now.

[TexasNative2000]

I think that before the election we will hear the following statement from the talking heads and DNC - "Actually, this is nothing like Watergate; although it appears the Kerry campaign may have been involved, Nixon was a sitting President. That makes all the difference"

Typical liberal logic.

[elhombrelibre]

Yes, and Nixon was from California and Kerry's from Massachusetts.

[hobson]

ping

[thecanuck]

Its possible I suppose that Burkett was sent the documents to review and thus became one of CBS's "experts" to prove their 'accuracy'. I haven't scrutinzed the docs but I wonder if the copy I've seen with underlining was what Burkett faxed back. He underlined key points he wanted highlighted.

All in all there is a bigger story behind this source but I think CBS' will collude with the DNC to pass these forgeries off on a safe patsy, not Burkett, and no one associated with CBS or Kerry.

[RoseofTexas]

OH MY GAWDDDDD, Free Republic is famous now! BUCKHEAD YOU'RE DA MAN!!! Hip, hip, hoorayyyyyy!! Free Republic WAS the first one to break the fake docs, not those other blogger sites! Finally getting our due!

[BobS]

Every Wednesday, Steyn is on the Hugh Hewitt show 3PM PST. He has an English accent and phrases that will make you howl!

[finnigan2]

" The only reasonable conclusion is that the source -- or trail of sources -- is even more incriminating than the fake documents."

- The outline of the real story of why CBS is stonewalling is already beginning to emerge. Last week when this story first started to unravel, a source in the DNC revealed that their office had received some documents from, "a retired Air Force officer" about six weeks before Rather's broadcast. Now it turns out that about six weeks earlier, Max Cleland had gone to Texas and took a car ride with Burkett. Burkett apparently said to Cleland, "what should I do if I could get some documents that would incriminate Bush?" That's when the documents arrived at DNC Headquarters. Shortly after that, Mapes rushes to Texas to meet Burkett. Do you suppose someone at the DNC told her to? You bet. Mapes come back and the documents are again faxed, this time to CBS and a few other pro-Kerry news outlets. In my opinion Mapes suggested this to Burkett for two reasons:
1) there would be no direct link between the documents going to the DNC and those which wound up at CBS, and;
2) By sending them to several news bureau's it would appear that CBS did not have an "exclusive" relationship with Burkett.
The ties between Burkett, his lawyer, Barnes, Rather's daughter and even Rather himself to the Travis County, Texas Democratic Party are already well known.
Therefore, to me it is obvious that Burkett, through his lawyer and his ties to the County Democratic organization asked for advice on how to handle his phony memo's. The local organization passed the query to the DNC who dispatched Cleland to check it out. He suggested that Burkett send whatever he had to the DNC for an assessment. The DNC looked at it, told Mapes and she got her copies directly from Burkett for Rather's newscast.
I suppose the only way to verify this would be to examine phone logs, Kinko fax records and the time line for the Cleland, Mapes visits to Burkett.

[iopscusa]

Steyn rates at the top along with Victor Hansen, imo, both are #1 in their particular specialty. Thank God for the Web!This Steyn-anian quote is just priceless: "Whatever other lessons are drawn from this, we ought at least to acknowledge that the privileged position accorded to ''official'' media and the restrictions placed on the citizenry by McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform are wholly unwarranted".

And This......too:
"As for Heyward and Rather, the other day I came across a rare memo from April 20, 1653, typed on a 17th century prototype of the IBM Selectric...Oliver Cromwell's words....."in the name of God, go"!

[IM2MAD]

"A thousand years from now, "rather" might be a common lower-case noun for a pompous incompetent who misses some obvious flaw in his plans."

I sorta like "ratheresque" and I'm not waiting 1000 years to use it.

[BobS]

Hehe. Steyn gets right to the point, either spoken or written. I'd like to hear him more often than once a week.

Anyway, we are in the 2nd stage of CBS's downfall. People are laughing at them. Jay Leno said CBS stands for Cock & Bull Story.

[browardchad]

Burkett is almost definitely the source, but the bigger problem facing CBS is concealment of the DNC as the intermediary.

As proved by the material quoted in both the NYT and WaPost today, Burkett has proved himself a loose cannon who can't be trusted not to rat on the DNC (either deliberately or inadvertently), which leaves this in limbo until or if the Burkett "problem" somehow disappears...you've got to wonder how many Dem "minders" have their eyes and ears intensely focused on that ranch near Abilene.

If I were Burkett, I'd be very paranoid right now.

[Bob from De]

If Rather fails in his feeble attempt to prove THESE documents "accurate",what is he going to do with the follow-up story? He probably has "sources" for W's drug habit, abuse of women, taking candy from babies, kicking of dogs, forgetting mother's day,etc.....
This "story" MUST be true if he is to break the BIGGER story!
Now whats he going to do with all those other documents?

[xkaydet65]

I don't know if Steyn's piece is the source of her news, but Monica Crowley on WABC isn't taking calls on rathergate this morning. She said she'll do it tomorrow and that the story is much bigger than what is being reported.

[Zebra]

"A thousand years from now, "rather" might be a common lower-case noun for a pompous incompetent who misses some obvious flaw in his plans." Sooner than that the verb "rathered" will apply to fraudulant representations of past events. Example: Kerry rathered his Vietnam war record.

That is priceless! I am going to start using that now. Please mark this post as the genesis of this addition to our lexicon. It will go fine with Dan Rather was finally Munsoned!

[Lurking in Kansas]

Bump for another Steyn classic.

By now just about everybody on the planet also thinks they're junk, except for that dwindling number of misguided people who watch the ''CBS Evening News'' under the misapprehension that it's a news broadcast rather than a new unreality show in which a cocooned anchor, his floundering news division and some feeble executives are trapped on their own isle of delusion and can't figure out a way to vote themselves off it.

ROTFLMAO. Priceless.

Thanks, elhombrelibre.

[Jaidyn]

The story isn't whether the documents' contents are true or false, but that they were forged with the intent to deceive the public. Even if Dan has a hundred credible documents negative towards Bush, the fact remains that the ones he presented to us were bogus. His goal was to create negative news about the president to bring him down. Had not Buckhead did what he did, it is likely that Bush wouldn't have had time to shake the charges by election time. What CBS did was try to change the entire political atmosphere with one stroke of the brush! Disgraceful!

[Ciexyz]

"The Docs are croc -- well said!"

[lormand]

Pinging buckhead....