[counterpunch]

I believe you may be correct on many points.
Just as someone else suggested that it was probably Burkett who arranged to go to Crawford or Waco to meet Cleland on that day.

We do not know the answers to these questions for sure.
What matters is that someone asks them, and they get fully investigated (by someone else besides Dan Rather.)

One of my biggest questions, which I implied by on retrospect realize I didn't ask in certain enough terms is whether or not it is even possible for 60 Minutes to have considered Burkett to be "unimpeachable."

I believe he HAD to have had someone with more credibility -- someone like Cleland or Barnes -- playing a role in supplying or vouching for the documents.

Knowing what has been widely known about Burkett for years, it would be the ultimate journalistic fraud for 60 Minutes to take the sole word of Burkett on these documents. It would be the absolute end for CBS News. There is no way the story could have gotten as far as it did without someone else that CBS trusted highly giving them assurances these documents were legit.

[SolomoninSouthDakota]

You're definitely on the right track here IMHO. I recall reading a pretty good analysis of the motives of the fraud perpetrators. It was within 24 hours of the fraud breaking open. Don't remember the poster but he sounded sharp as a tack and he was convinced based on Kerry's management style that the story led right straight to J effin K himself. It's seeming more and more likely to be the case. Wish I could recall which freeper it was.