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Designated Rathergate fallgal Mary Mapes is still on the job at the network's formerly great news division, despite a deluge of leaks from CBS employees fingering her as the "60 Minutes" producer who dropped the ball in the forged memo story. "CBS News staffers say they're puzzled why Mapes is still apparently actively working on the memos story," reports USA Today in Wednesday editions. CBS News spokeswoman Sandy Genelius refused to comment on Mapes continuing work on the memos story, but acknowledged, however, that the "60 Minutes" producer remains on CBS's payroll. The fact that Mapes is still on the...

SOURCE: CBS TO ADDRESS LOCKHARDT ISSUEApparently, CBS President Andrew Heyward is going to issue a statement about the Lockhardt connection.The powers that be are arguing about the wording. Supposedly it was scheduled for 3PM Eastern but we know what happened to the last timeline.Looks like (CBS producer) Mapes is soon to be unemployed if anyone is hiring.

KVI Seattle's John Carlson is breaking a story about Mary Mapes...she did something like this at KIRO TV in '87...Carlson telling story now live

Alright, so Burkett claims he got the documents from Lucy Ramirez. So who is she? Here is the most likely candidate I can find via googling, though not very likely; http://www.tachc.org/About/Membership/Member_Directory/NCV.asp Director of Nuestra Clinica del Valle in Pharr TX.

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20040921/1a_cover21x.art0.htm USA Today Exclusive with Burkett It is the funniest thing I have ever read. This guy is fregan nuts.

<p>WASHINGTON — CBS arranged for a confidential source to talk with Joe Lockhart, a top aide to John Kerry, after the source provided the network with the now-disputed documents about President Bush's service in the Texas National Guard.</p> <p>John Kerry aide Joe Lockhart chatted with a former Texas National Guard officer, whose number CBS provided.</p>

BYLINE: By C. BRYSON HULL, Associated Press Writer DATELINE: JASPER, Texas BODY: Hawthorn pulled the chain out, showing it to jurors during cross examination of a police detective just a few hours into testimony Wednesday. In doing so, he stole a moment used to great dramatic effect by the prosecution in closing stages of the King and Brewer trials. Berry's trial began as two pre-trial distractions came to an end. First, State District Judge Joe Bob Golden denied a last-minute defense motion to move the trial from Jasper, about 125 miles northeast of Houston, because of intense media coverage and...

Column: Rathergate: Bursting the Liberal bubble By Gary Livacari Published: Tuesday, September 21, 2004 Article Tools: Page 1 of 2 September 8, 2004: A day that will forevermore be remembered as Rathergate, or more precisely, "Blathergate." It is the day that marks Dan Rather's scurrilous, vindictive attempt to undermine the surging presidency of George W. Bush and save the ill-fated Kerry campaign. Dan Rather is, yet again, going down and going down fast. This blind, unabashed partisan is certainly familiar with disgrace and embarrassment, but this time he is taking CBS and the "mainstream" media down with him. "Blathergate" has...

WAS SAD MAX THE PART OF THE PHONY DOCUMENTS SCAM? How long has it been now? Two weeks? Two weeks ---- and Dan Rather is still stonewalling. Even though CBS seems to be ready to admit that it was duped, Rather is holding fast. He still has not admitted that those documents he so proudly flourished on 60 Minutes II the week before last were fakes. Forgeries. Phonies. This past weekend CBS came up with a rather unusual twist. It was yet another glorious explanation of just why Dan Rather used those documents ... and how he was so terribly,...

LOS ANGELES: Internet bloggers have drawn blood and American journalism may never be the same. To hear some press experts tell it, CBS's admission that it was duped into using questionable documents about President George W Bush's National Guard service during the Vietnam War was a watershed moment brought on by a small army of internet-based commentators known as bloggers. Their insistence, from the moment that CBS aired its report almost two weeks ago, that the documents were fake turned the question into a national issue ending with Rather, CBS and the American media establishment in a state of deep...

Burkett: "I could understand that question. I can't. That's gonna have to be your judgment and anybody else's." Burkett still insists the documents are real, but says he was in no position to verify them. Burkett: "I also insisted when I sat down with your staff in the first face-to-face session, before I gave up any documents, I wanted to know what you were gonna do with them. And I insisted they be authenticated."

I haven't started one of these before, but I thought a live discussion thread might be appropriate. Post away!

Tony Coelho admitted on Hardball tonight that the DNC had the memos before CBS but that they didn't use them because they realized that the documents were probably fake. 'He did not come to us, we went to him and asked for the documents.'Who told CBS/DNC that Burkett had the documents?I TiVo'ed and watched it again, Surreal.

On Now

Reprinted from NewsMax.com Monday, Sept. 20, 2004 10:13 p.m. EDTBurkett: I Warned CBS to Authenticate Documents Former National Guard commander Bill Burkett said Monday night that he warned producers at CBS that they needed to authenticate documents he gave them that were critical of President Bush's National Guard record - because he couldn't guarantee they were real. "Before I gave up any documents I wanted to know what you were going to do with them," Burkett told CBS anchorman Dan Rather. "And I insisted that they be authenticated." Rather admitted that CBS had failed to heed their primary source's warning....

Millions of Americans are outraged by CBS News and Dan Rather for their obstinance in admitting they used forged documents to indict the military record of George W. Bush. In an online survey completed this week, and with more than 100,000 respondents, NewsMax readers overwhelming believe that Dan Rather should resign as anchor for the CBS Evening News. Mr. Rather's position may have been further weakened when: a) it was revealed that CBS purposefully withheld from their '60 Minutes' program forensic experts who said the documents were fraudulent; b) after it was clear the documents were found to be fraudulent,...

A spit-take scoop from USA Today: CBS arranged for a confidential source to talk with Joe Lockhart, a top aide to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, after the source provided the network with the now-disputed documents about President Bush's service in the Texas National Guard. Lockhart, the former press secretary to President Clinton, said a female producer talked to him about the 60 Minutes program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer who gave CBS the documents. Lockhart couldn't...

Washington, DC--Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie issued the following statement on CBS’s admission today that memos regarding the President’s National Guard service are not real. “We accept CBS's apology for a breach of the journalistic standards that provide the American people confidence in news organizations, but some disturbing questions remain unanswered. “CBS has now answered questions about the authenticity of the documents but questions remain surrounding who created the documents, who provided them to CBS and if Senator Kerry's supporters, Party committee, or campaign played any role. “Did Bill Burkett, Democrat activist and Kerry campaign supporter, who passed information...

After ten days at the center of a news media storm, Dan Rather and CBS News admitted yesterday that they could not authenticate four documents the network had used to raise new questions about President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service and said the news report had been a "mistake in judgment." Network officials said a former Texas National Guard officer had misled their producers about how he had obtained the documents, which came under scrutiny almost as soon as the network broadcast its report on the CBS Evening News and "60 Minutes" on Sept. 8. While CBS stopped short of...