Free Republic

It’s been nearly eight years since Dan Rather’s long career at CBS came to a close after he ran a story that could have derailed President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection. Instead, the story about Bush’s supposedly questionable National Guard service wound up giving the media a black eye after some of the documents used to in the report turned out to be fake. Nonetheless, Rather is still at it, making the case that he was in the right and that the only reason he was forced out at CBS was because of pressure from his corporate superiors. Rather made...

<p>On Friday February 11, the day Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a 60 MINUTES story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy.</p>

CBS News says that correspondent Lara Logan was attacked and sexually assaulted last Friday in Cairo’s Tahrir Square while filming a piece for “60 Minutes.” From the CBS News statement: On Friday February 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS Correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a 60 MINUTES story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into a frenzy. In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew....

I wrote last week that we'd see more outbreaks of anti-military vandalism leading up to Election Day. In upstate New York on Halloween eve, "(expletive) Bush" and a depiction of a penis were scrawled on the 20-by-40-foot flag and similar pictures in the same shade of green were painted on the American Legion Mohawk Post. Now there's this despicable act in Boise, Idaho reportedly committed by the sons of a state Democrat legislator: Police arrested 24-year old Michael Burkett of Boise early Sunday morning after officers with Capitol Mall Security reported spotting him vandalizing two flag polls on the grounds...

Boise, Idaho -- Police arrested 24-year old Michael Burkett of Boise early Sunday morning after officers with Capitol Mall Security reported spotting him vandalizing two flag polls on the grounds of the Idaho Statehouse. The flags are memorials to soldiers who lost their lives in the war on terror. "It's certainly upsetting, not just to officers but for any citizen of this county who knows somebody who lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan," Lt. Ron Winegar said of the ongoing investigation. Burkett was charged with resisting arrest and Malicious Injury to Property. He and his 22-year-old brother, Tom Burkett,...

November 09, 2005 Mary Mapes Names Names ("Anonymous" Ones) Posted by Bill An excerpt from page 201 of her new book: Within minutes of Buckhead's original posting, Freepers began to repeat and embellish Buckhead's thoughts. Not surprisingly, they all agreed with him, they all agreed with one another, and they all agreed this should be pursued aggressively. Freethinkers they are not. The Freepers and their lockstep like-minded fellow travelers moved as a group, like a school of sharks sweeping toward an unaware and unarmed victim. CBS was like some sunburned, overweight Florida tourist with a cut foot, floundering and flapping...

If special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald delivers indictments of a few functionaries of the vice president’s office or the White House, we are likely to have on our hands a constitutional crisis. The evidence of widespread wrongdoing and conspiracy is before every American with a cheap laptop and a cable television subscription. And we do not have the same powers of subpoena granted to Fitzgerald. We know, however, based upon what we have read and seen and heard that someone created fake documents related to Niger and Iraq and used them as a false pretense to launch America into an invasion...

Now that the brouhaha over Dan Rather's "Memogate" scandal is no longer front-and-center in the national media, one has to wonder why there's been no closure to the issue of the documents themselves. Bill Burkett, the supplier of the documents to CBS, changed his story on the source of the documents, ultimately claiming that one "Lucy Ramirez" gave them to him. No one even knows who Lucy Ramirez is, if she exists of if she's another figment of Burkett's imagination. Surely, a scoop on where the documents came from would be huge. Reporters, even those at CBS could be working...

CBS News’ Boss Hired Private Eye To Source Memos by Joe Hagan On Sept. 20 of last year, CBS announced that it was employing an independent panel to investigate how 60 Minutes Wednesday had ended up relying on shaky-looking memos in its segment about President Bush’s past service in the Texas Air National Guard. The investigators, CBS said, would "determine what errors occurred in the preparation of the report and what actions need to be taken." Five days later, CBS launched another inquiry into the memo scandal. The network hired a private investigator named Erik T. Rigler, a former F.B.I....

Bill Burkett, the former Texas national guardsman who provided CBS with the bogus documents it used to allege that President Bush evaded the draft and used family connections to cover up his shoddy military service, spoke out against the network in a 2,600-word letter addressed to the quasi-independent panel which CBS had appointed to investigate the whole Memogate affair. In the letter, which the panel's legal representative confirmed receiving, Burkett says that CBS blamed him for its own failures in order to minimize the damage to its own reputation. He also continues to stand by his revised explanation of how...

THE NEW YORK OBSERVER will report tomorrow: 'Former 60 Minutes Wednesday executive editor Josh Howard has told colleagues that before he resigns, the 23-year CBS News veteran will demand that the network retract remarks by CBS president Leslie Moonves, correct its official story line and ultimately clear his name'... In the event of a lawsuit, Mr. Howard has told associates that he would like to see Moonves put under oath to talk about his own roles in the network's stubborn, hapless defense of the flawed segment on President Bush's National Guard service. Howard has also indicated to colleagues that he...

In a week in which it was burnt by at least one high-profile source, CBS News is being accused by another of having used and abandoned him. The Observer has learned that CBS News and Dan Rather made use of Jonathan (Jack) Idema, a former Green Beret, mercenary and rogue soldier, who was tried and sentenced on Sept. 15 to 10 years in an Afghan prison for operating a private jail and torturing civilians he claimed were Al Qaeda operatives. Mr. Idema is now accusing CBS News of abandoning him after having what appears to have been an ad hoc...

B. G. Burkett, Author of "Stolen Valor" is currently on CSPAN and made the statement that he expects a major revelation about John Kerry's military records in the next few days.

As Memogate moves out of the journalistic fiasco phase and into a more legalistic phase, the strength of CBS Legal’s Felony Abatement Plan (also known to prosecutors as ‘tampering’) will be put to test. There is ample evidence of criminal intent by CBS both pre-broadcast and post-broadcast. One as-yet unrealized consequence (other than to CBS Legal) is that communications between a lawyer and client are no longer privileged when the subject matter is furthering a crime or a fraud. The Texas forgery code provides that publication of two or more fake government documents is a felony. Hence, discussions between CBS...

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) - A Central Texas radio station is severing its ties with CBS News after receiving hundreds of complaints about the network's coverage of President Bush's military record. Bryan-College Station radio station WTAW will begin airing national news from ABC within 90 days, station manager Ben Downs said. About 350 people wrote to the station to complain about CBS' discredited "60 Minutes" report on Bush's National Guard service. The network's Sept. 8 report centered on questionable memos that suggested Bush got preferential treatment because of his family ties. Anchor Dan Rather later offered an on-air apology on...

CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves said the independent panel investigating the network's report on President Bush's National Guard service probably wouldn't complete its work before the presidential election. The Sept. 8 report on CBS's "60 Minutes" news magazine relied on now-discredited documents. While the scrutiny of Viacom Inc.'s CBS has faded somewhat, some media pundits warn that the longer the panel's inquiry takes, the more unsettled it leaves CBS. And against the argument that the report should come after the election to avoid any unintended influence or distraction, some counter that a delay makes the network seem to be dragging its...

http://jb-williams.com/10-5-04.htm How to support Kerry for President Written by JB Williams ©2004-10-05 In order to cast a vote for John Kerry, you first have to believe he is fit to be Commander-in-Chief. Now some don’t believe he is, namely 95% of all the decorated vets who served beside him in Vietnam, more than 70% of all living retired military personnel, and more than 80% of those serving in combat today. But what do they know? Besides, as the Democratic Party points out at every opportunity, what Right do these people (who spill their blood for our freedom) have to speak...

In order for the memos to be “valid”, Killian would have had to: 1) Reject perfectly good, regular typewriters that were available to his unit and in general, that typed all other documents at the time. 2) Make extraordinary efforts to get equipment that – it is virtually certain – weren’t commonly available at that time. 3) Want to create (and thought about creating) 6 documents that were totally different from any others at the time. 4) Make documents that were different from any other then-contemporary documents. 5) Go through extreme Rube Goldberg contortions to make the documents (which even...

http://www.billburkett.us/blog Burkett VS CBS This is Burkett's Blog Burkett claims he had a committment from CBS to authenticate the documents. Then how come he xeroxed them and destroyed the originals? How did he expect CBS to authenticate xerox copies?

The well-dressed disrupter at the recent premiere of "Stolen Honor," a documentary film attacking John Kerry's role as a Vietnam War protester, has been identified as a Kerry campaign and Democratic National Committee staffer who had served time for manslaughter in a fatal shooting. Wayne F. Smith interrupted the question-and-answer session following the Sept. 9 showing in Washington, delivering a long speech assailing the film and defending Sen. Kerry. He did not identify himself, but he recently had joined the Kerry campaign's veterans outreach operation. The campaign told this column Thursday night that Smith worked for the DNC. Although Smith...