[counterpunch]

I will explain.
CBS said that the documents - this "hard evidence" - is what convinced Barned to agree to be interviewed. According to their story, if it is to be believed, CBS said to Barnes "we have these damning documents" and that is what made him change his mind and go public with his (newly changed) story.

Now, if it actually was, as this article tells us, Barnes who called up Dan Rather a couple days BEFORE CBS had the documents and told him that he had a "confession" and wanted to be interviewed, since it is reasonable to assume to these documents were the catalyst for this bold decision, because Barnes would not want to be making unsupported accusations without some kind of empirical evidence, then this means Barnes saw the documents a few days before CBS did.

This means he had direct contact with the forger, rather than CBS being the ones to show the docs to Barnes.

Do you follow that now?

[Dog]

This scam was designed to be the perfect storm......but those pesky details did them in.

[Cboldt]

This means he had direct contact with the forger, rather than CBS being the ones to show the docs to Barnes.

Good inference (not quite proof, but very sound inference), but one little nit. Barnes may have seen the forgeries without necessarily knowing who the forger was.

[hobson]

The Barnes interview was not a new revelation. Austin4Kerry.com filmed Barnes' "confession" in May and published the video on their website in June. All the details are here: Bush's Brain Author Central Figure in Rather-Gate

[t2buckeye]

Excellent point and one that I have not heard yet. I have wondered why Barnes changed his story, but your analysis of the "time-line" makes sense.

[GoLightly]

I thought Barnes was supposed to have undergone some kind of epiphany during a stop at "The Wall". Also thought he was working on a book. When did his daughter say he told her about that?

CBS wouldn't lie in an interviews to a fellow journalist, about Barnes getting convinced to tell his story after they got their hands on the docs, now would they?

[BigSkyFreeper]

Dan Rather and Ben Barnes go back a long ways. They just didn't suddenly meet each other on the phone 3 weeks ago.

[Mach9]

Barnes saw or KNEW of the documents' existence. If this was all part of a master plan (60 Mins. covering Barnes and documents, Kitty Kelly's Book, Dems' new ad on Bush cop-out, attacks by Senate & House Dems all as prelude to MSM-debates), why would Barnes doubt his instructions from Kerry Camp or DNC?