Starring Bill Burkett as the Fall Guy
From CBS News:
Bill Burkett, in a weekend interview with CBS News Anchor and Correspondent Dan Rather, has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents used in the Sept. 8 "60 Minutes Wednesday" report on President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard. Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, also admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents’ origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source. Burkett originally said he obtained the documents from another former Guardsman. Now he says he got them from a different source whose connection to the documents and identity CBS News has been unable to verify to this point. Burkett’s interview will be featured in a full report on tonight’s CBS Evening News with Dan Rather (6:30-7:00 p.m., ET/PT).You can read the rest here. Burkett was set up by a big fish. Maybe Rather and CBS think a quick passive-aggressive apology (a week too late) and passing the blame to someone else will put an end to this. But I ask this: What happened to Rather's unimpeachable source? It's obvious that's not a reference to Burkett. So why not come totally clean and tell us who the source is? Burkett is merely a patsy, put up to this by other people who knew that Burkett - who has a hard on for anything anti-Bush - would jump at the chance to possibly bring Bush down. Someone call O.J. because the real killer is still out there. Update: I think Rather is going to get away with this and that pisses me off to no end. CBS will keep firing away at will at everyone except their man Rather. I mean, a man of such integrity and fairness, a man so honored and admired, cannot go down like this. He is Dan Rather and when the battlefield clears, he'll be sitting in a throne while the peasants lay bloody in the streets. Rather to Mary Mapes: When I am king you will be first against the wall.
Comments
Burkett is such an easy patsy, too. Two nervous breakdowns and a pathological axe to grind. "Obsessive" just doesn't quite cover the internal workings of Burkett's mind.
Posted by: Darleen | September 20, 2004 02:57 PM
Now let's see---CBS can't authenticate the documents, but the premise of the story is true. If there is nothing to "authenticate" the story, then how can the story be true?
Posted by: Amazed | September 20, 2004 03:02 PM
Something is most definately rotten in the state of CBS. I want to know who his "unimpeachable source" was.
Posted by: Sunidesus | September 20, 2004 03:17 PM
Want to talk about obscessive? CBS admits to digging into the bogus "Bush AWOL" story for 5 YEARS! What, other can rabid partisanship, could explain such an obscession over such an insignificant issue?
Ann Richards first tried this line when Bush first ran for governor. It was tried again when he ran for reelection, and again in 2000 and earlier this year, only to be tried yet again this month.
They say that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and again while somehow expecting a different outcome. By that definition, DNCBS News and the Democrats must be insane.
Posted by: Larry J | September 20, 2004 03:23 PM
Typical coverup behavior. In Watergate it was supposed to end with James McCord. Then it got to Liddy. Then Mitchell. But that, we were told was the end. But it ended much higher, indeed.
I think we're at McCord now. Mapes may be Liddy. Where's our Judge Sirica? Oh wait, that's us.
Posted by: Kevin Murphy | September 20, 2004 04:58 PM
Hey Larry J:
I just read in today's WashPost about a condition known as "perseveration, a brain dysfunction that causes people to persist in a task even when they know rationally that the chosen strategy is doomed and may even be mortally dangerous." The Post reports that doctors believe that this condition caused the Red Baron, who had suffered a serious head wound in a previous dog fight, to pursue a British flyer into enemy airspace, where he was shot out of the sky after suffering a fatal bullet through the chest.
It's quite possible that Dan Blather suffered a head wound while covering one of those hurricanes a few years back.
Perseveration would also explain Kerry's current campaign.
Posted by: sligobob | September 20, 2004 05:51 PM
What do they pay these CBS goofs? How many millions of times do people have to make the same stupid mistakes? Got something that seems too good to be true and it only comes from a single source? Don't put it on the evening news! Is that really a difficult thing to figure out? It's not like there aren't acceptable outlets for this tripe. If you just can't hold it in, write a trashy gossip book! Viacom should can all these monkey morons.
Extra idiot points if, after faxing the documents to someone, they try cite that person's public release of the faxed documents as evidence in their case. Why don't they just call Iran to confirm an intelligence report from Chabli while they're at it!? Sigh.
Also, in the category of walking and chewing bubblegum at the same time, how hard is it to realize this is now two storys. First they can redo the original story without the bad evidence (we'll let them do it first, since we all know that Vietnam era guard records are sooooo terribly important). If they think it's got legs without those documents (as we hear them bleat again and again) then why won't they put their airtime where their mouthes are? Second, they need to take some responsibility for how badly they've screwed up and start apologizing (the President, their viewers, the American public, and the world at large sounds like a good start). Then if CBS wants to get some credibilty back, they need to clean house with a flamethrower up there.
Posted by: Soli | September 20, 2004 06:33 PM
Having seen management cover-ups over the years, it doesn't pay to let this kind of stuff go by without serious scrutiny.
I'm a renegade Republican with a very strong admiration for Harry Truman. The pressure should start at the top, with the corporate leadership at Viacom. If the Viacom Board of Directors neglects or refuses to take action, stockholder lawsuits are in order.
Posted by: Chuck | September 20, 2004 09:24 PM
I found a picture of Burkett, if anyone's interested.
Posted by: Big Brother | September 20, 2004 09:50 PM
Apparently nothing new for Dan Rather, he and CBS seem to have a history of believing any lies from vets that support a story they want to be true. The worse the lies make the US government and other veterans look, the better they like it and the less fact-checking they do.
Posted by: Lynxx Pherrett | September 21, 2004 04:29 AM
Rather says it was Burkett who fooled Mapes. Mapes says it was Burkett who fooled her. Burkett says it was :
1) George Conn (oh, sorry, I lied about him)
2) Lucy Ramirez (that's who she said she was)
3) Okay, the Kerry people put me up to it, but
I'm not a well man, okay? They told me I could BE somebody...I coulda been a CONTENDA...
Posted by: Don | September 21, 2004 05:46 AM