USA Today acknowledges that it independently received the documents

USA Today | 9/13/04

[ambrose]

USA Today acknowledges that it indepedently received the documents

[rocklobster11]

Bill Burkett is the source of the forged memos. I doubt that he wrote them, and he definitely didn't have them prior to the 2000 election, or he would have released them then. Instead, he has been used to get obvious forgeries accepted by the left wing press.

So, my theory is that someone read his discredited story about people cleansing Bush's National Guard records in 1997, specifically about seeing memos that were negative with respect to George Bush thrown in the trash can. Now, this story was widely reported in 2000 and widely discredited by everyone that Burkett mentioned as beeing involved in his conspiracy theory.

So someone decided to "create" the memos that Burkett had mentioned and pass them on to him, knowing that if he delivered the memos, the lame stream press would consider them real because of his stories from 2000. Especially someone as partisan and ignorant as Dan Rather.

Notice the title of the June 24,1973 and August 1, 1973 memos is "SUBJECT: Bush, George W. 1st Lt". Then check out this story from CNN from February 13,2004:

Guardsman says he saw Bush's Guard records in trash.

Specifically, see this quote from the article:

"I glanced down at the top of those documents. In ink was the word 'Bush, George W., 1 Lt.' This was a performance report. I was right at the trash can. I filtered through the top five or six pages in that, and they were all copies and originals of old performance documents and pay records for 'Bush, George W., 1 Lt.".

So now, CBS comes up with 6 memos supposedly critical of Bush. I say supposedly, because they are not really critical in my opinion, but could be spun that way by the Democratic 527 known as the Main Stream Media.

Some not too clever partisan took this one of these media stories about Burkett and decided to help Burkett produce some documents. Given the credibility hits that Burkett has taken over his discredited story, he was only too happy to believe they were real. Given John Kerry's floundering campaign, serial liar Terry McAuliffe and phony Vietnam Vet Tom Harkin were only too happy to believe these forgeries would hurt Bush. Given Dan Rather's total lack of credibility, he was only too happy to help pass them on to the public.

Unfortunately, Buckhead was rightly skeptical from the start, and the MSM couldn't shut down the discussion on the internet.

So, I expect to see some admission in the coming week that Burkett is the source of these memos. Hopefully, someone in the MSM will ask why he was able to produce these memos now, but not when he made these charges 4 years ago or anytime since.

Also, check out this quote from calpundit:

Jim Moore, a longtime Texas reporter (and, granted, hardly a fan of Bush), has talked with Burkett extensively for a soon to be published book titled Bush's War For Reelection: Iraq, the White House, and the People. Moore emailed me that he finds Burkett "immensely credible."

So, who does Dan Rather have on CBS News to prop him up on the fact that the documents are not forgeries? Jim Moore. Coincidence?

[estpeter]

The big guns are in there now.. we can expect one attack after another so that the public cannot focus for too long. This is typical rat MO learned at the knee of Bill Clinton. On another note I think the GOP should be looking into the Tides Foundation, especially the Ramsey Clark portion. There is a lot of interesting stuff under this umbrella

[Interloper]

I did think it was weird that a few days ago Carville went out of his way to state that he had no ties to Kerry/Edwards:

Office of James Carville

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 10, 2004
Contact: Sarah Sturtevant
Number: XXX XXX XXXX
Carville calls himself "Strategist with Opinions"

Alexandria, VA- The Office of James Carville would like to state that when referring to political consultant James Carville, his current title is "CNN Crossfire Host and Democratic Strategist." In addition, he has no official role with the Kerry/Edwards Campaign. Mr. Carville describes himself as a Democratic Strategist with strong opinions. Only Mr. Carville is to be responsible for what he says, not CNN, the Kerry/Edwards Campaign, or anyone else.

http://www.wonkette.com/archives/james-carville-has-opinions-021153.php

[Wil H]

It is so clear the DNC and the Kerry campaign is involved in this. I suspect Carville and Begala are in on this for sure.

That depends (on who is telling the truth), Carville and Begala supposedly only joined the camaign last week, CBS says they have been "authenticating" the documents for six weeks.

[Always Right]

I did think it was weird that a few days ago Carville went out of his way to state that he had no ties to Kerry/Edwards:

I think you need to brush up on your Clinton-speak. What Carville said was he has 'no official role'. Prabably means he is only a paid political consultant and has no official title in the Kerry campaign. There is no doubt that Carville is consulting Kerry.

[ladyjane]

forgibe my typo:

Look at all the typos on FR. Isn't it interesting that there appear to be no typos on these docs. Back in the days before computers erasures were common on documents.

[finnigan2]

"This sounds like Burkett gave them both to USA and to CBS."

- I'd have to agree that Burkett looks more and more to be the forger. as USA Today admits, they received their memo copies from a source associated with the Texas Air National Guard. That description fits Burkett and he would have enough knowledge about Guard matters to be able to fake some of the "militarize" in the memo's but not enough to remember clearly the formatting and other Guard conventions used over 30 years ago.
I bet he sent these memo's everywhere - the DNC, the Kerry campaign, USA Today, CBS, Kitty Kelly, etc. In short, anyone he thought would listen. This would account for the confusion from various parties as to the source of the memo's; those who received them passed them around so eventually third party recipients are unsure of their true origin.
Burkett's already had two nervous breakdowns, I think he should be hospitalized again.

[SolidSupplySide]

USA Today needs to come clean - who is the forger?

USA Today need say nothing. They didn't run with the report. USA Today need not reveal sources it does not use. That is a slippery slope on which no media outlet needs to fall.

[LS]

No, none of them will work, because none CAN work.

The subliminal message from the Dem convention was that you can trust Kerry on the WOT because he was a "war hero."

That was meant to elevate Kerry above Bush following two years of attacks on Bush's credibility as a "war president." It may have done so briefly (I even doubt that), but whatever Kerry gained from Vietnam in May and June is gone now. Instead, every new reference to VIETNAM reminds voters that Kerry "isn't quite right" on Vietnam, and therefore can't be trusted with the WOT."

This strat was a colossal blunder by the Dems, but the only one they could run on. They seem now totally oblivious to what ANY new charges---even against Bush---now subliminally imply. No matter what they say about Bush, the messages people here is this equation: "Vietnam . . . Kerry has problems with story . . . can't trust . . . Bush . . . never associated him with Vietnam . . . leader during WOT . . . can trust."

This game is over and has been for four weeks.

[LS]

They aren't making a stink because this HUGELY benefits Bush. See my equation above. The LAST thing the GOP wants to do is shut this thing up. It's killing Kerry, and the Dems are too stoooopid to realize it.

[concerned about politics]

Burkett

If you look at the document where the commanding officer was asked to "sugarcoat" Bush's record, you'll see it dates 1971. The commanding officer who supposedly was given that order retired a year before.

Barns, who claimed to have helped Bush get in the guard became Lt. Governor in 1969, one year after Bush went in the Guard. Bush joined in 1968.

Also, if you look at the supposed PO Box # on the document, you'll see they have it being 34567. Strange coincidence, no?

[Indie]

this makes Watergate look like amateur hour.

My question is still WHERE IS THE FBI???????

Is there not a CRIME here??????????????

No conspiracy...yeah right!

The presstitutes should be tried for treason. This is not free speech.

[concerned about politics]

My question is still WHERE IS THE FBI???????

I'm sure they're on It. Military document forgery is a felony.

[KC_Conspirator]

That is my thoughts exactly.

People should be aping the phrase "Third rate burglarly" with the new phrase "Third rate forgery". At just another look these documents are so fraudulent that amatuers could point them out.

People should be asking "What did Kerry know and when did he know it".

Dan Rather should resign in shame.

[mvpel]

Just to be clear, BlackBoxVoting, regardless of Bev Harris' background, has a legitimate beef with Diebold, to the point where the State of California has joined their suit against Diebold.

You know how "politics makes strange bedfellows?" Well, Bev Harris is working on the electronic voting issue with Jim March, who is a lobbyist for the Second Amendment Foundation and a vigorous activist for right-to-carry in California - about as far across the political spectrum from Bev as you can get.

Diebold's software has a hidden feature where a complete set of vote tallies can be replaced with another, with no outward indication that any tampering has taken place.

Whether that works in favor of the Dems or the Republicans makes no difference, it is an intolerable affront to our nation's democratic process, and Diebold deserves to be CRUSHED for it, even if it's a partisan hack like Bev Harris who does the crushing.

[qwertyman]

Re lack of GOP response to forgeries: I agree it would be a huge mistake for the WH to become directly involved in the forgeries controversy, given how the story is playing out even without its involvement. I also think, however, that if the WH took the bait and declared the docs forgeries, that would be taken as some kind of evidence that Rove & Co. in fact had engineered a setup. Clearly, the Dems WANT the WH to come out on this; otherwise they wouldn't be trotting out this lame argument that "the docs must be real because the WH hasn't questioned their authenticity."

Re your "equation," while I agree JFK's Vietnam strategy hasn't worked, and perhaps has even backfired, let's not lose sight of the bigger picture. Kerry needed more than just a good campaign strategy to win this election. He needed events to cut against the president in a fairly dramatic way. A year or so ago, it looked like a reasonably good bet that the economic picture wasn't going to be so rosy by Election Day, and that bad news out of Iraq might continue to dominate the news. Fortunately, things have improved on both fronts. Bush has all but run out the clock on the economic front (with only one more jobs/GDP report to go before the election). Iraq remains a big trouble spot, but in the post-handover-of-sovereignty phase, there seems to be a more realistic acceptance of ongoing resistance to the new govt, and the press is no longer giving the same saturation coverage to the situation that we saw in the Spring. So while Kerry's campaign strategy will deservedly be condemned in the wake of Bush's reelection (knock wood!), the fact remains that the bad times the Dems were really counting on in order to defeat this president have simply not materialized.

[shezza]

This will become as big an issue in history as Watergate.

Ah, but don't forget the media bias. Nixon was a Republican. Kerry is "their boy," and more importantly, Anybody But Bush. They're hemming and hawing and dragging their feet on this as long as they can, hoping the American populace's memory is short indeed. (Then they can distract We The Sheeple -- not including the Internet Pajama "Brownshirts" -- with the next Bush-is-a-slacker story.)

[Always Right]

They aren't making a stink because this HUGELY benefits Bush. See my equation above. The LAST thing the GOP wants to do is shut this thing up. It's killing Kerry, and the Dems are too stoooopid to realize it.

Yeah, but this story is gonna need some new legs. The MSM has already done a nice job of discrediting CBS, but they will not investigate it much further. This story will die soon if we do not demand answers such as the source of these memos. The Democrats are pros at keeping GOP scandals in the news, while the GOP typical lets Democratic scandals die and are soon forgotten. The MSM will need to be pushed to get them to go after anyone in the Kerry campaign.

[LS]

All good points. But don't underestimate the fact that from the get-go, Kerry essentially campaigned on, well, VIETNAM. He didn't even try to formulate a WOT policy, because he knew it would cost him his base. My point is that the media uncritically (as it always does now) leaped on his bandwagon without even noticing it was headed for a cliff, and now even Kerry can't get off.

[mrobison]

Rush just suggested that everyone type up fake documents saying things like, "Kerry quit beating his wife," and send them to CBS.

What a hoot!