SwiftVets.com

[psyydoc]

OK, let's review. Cleeland's tale is that he answered a call from Burkett and as a result listened to unsolicited advice spewed by this odd stranger from Podunk, Texas about Kerry campaign strategy. Cleeland maintains there was no mention of the forged NG documents. If that's truly what happened, why in the world would an important, busy policially-connected operative like Cleeland give the fruitcake Burkett the time of day, much less listen to him ramble on and on about political tactics? It just doesn't add up.

Then Cleeland says he passed on the information to the Kerry campaign (BTW, Max you seem to have neglected to tell us to whom the information went.) But why would Cleeland trouble himself to pass this information along to Kerry's campaign, if the brief phone call only involved some deranged guy giving unsolicited (and certainly unsophisticated) campaign advice. Again, it just doesn't add up.

Then we're told that Lockhart called Burkett at Mapes' request (apparently as part of the deal to get the documents) and like Cleeland he listened intently to this lunatic describe for him appropriate campaign strategy. Again, we are expected to believe that Lockhart knew nothing about the documents, and that Burkett never mentioned them. So are we to really believe that Lockhart never asked Mapes what this unusual request by the 60 Minutes producer was all about - he wasn't in the least bit interested why she was requesting that he phone this nutball? Again this just doesn't add up.

These tales also ask us to believe that, being the epitome of self-control, Burkett restrained himself from discussing the most important "discovery" of his lifetime in the most important phone conversations he had ever had.
He just wanted to give unsolicited and general advice about being more aggressive, but not reveal that he had these "blockbuster" documents. Sure. For the very first time in his life, he became suddenly and inexplicably mute regarding the issue that he had that he thought would sink Bush. Not hard to believe.

Finally, we're told that Kerry was informed of this matter personally after the phone contacts occurred. Again, why in the world should this occur concerning two very brief "you-need-to-be-more-aggressive" conversations with some yahoo in Texas? Once again, it just doesn't add up.

The current set of stories defies common sense. You boys over there at the Kerry campaign need to try again.

[cipher]

There's a problem you are overlooking. If they tell the truth, there are people who are going to get indicted and very likely go to trial, and quite possibly go to prison for what may be a LONG time.

This is called a "cover-up" in the business. And the Kerry campaign is in full damage control mode, very likely in cooperation with their willing accomplices at CBS.

This caper makes Martha Stewart look like a professional scammer in comparison.
_________________
USMC 69-72, 7th Comm, 3rd MarDiv, FMFPAC
US Army 75-79, 97th Sig, SHAPE, NATO
Arkansas National Guard 79
Defense contractor for US Navy, SSPO, SP-20, SP-24, OP-12 84-92

[USAFBratToo]

On an NPR call-in show about Rathergate here in the SF Bay area this morning guests were Orville Schell, prof of Journalism at UC Berkeley and other reporters from major regional papers. All was as you would expect: History will prove that poor Dan was set up by ___ Karl Rove; ___ Those Swift Boat People; ___ Whacko right wing bloggers; ___ all of the above. The "point" was made that all this talk about the documents being fake was a smokescreen by the Bush people to divert attention from the contents of the memos, which was true. Even though the documents themselves weren't. Huh? Oh, and did you know that the real file, with the original docs, is hidden in the White House in Bush's private locked files? And the UC Prof was actually advocating that there should be a law requiring everyone who posts anything on the internet including comments on a blog must identify themselves with their true name and perhaps other information because the internet now is teetering on the brink of chaos and anarchy. The very person who a few months back was railing against the Patriot Act for infringing on civil liberties. I couldn't get through, but - there were at least two callers with the opposite viewpoint who did get through and made excellent points!

[vickie]

My understanding is these are violations of ethics. Careers could be damaged. CBS is certainly damaged. John Kerry's campaign may look bad but nobody is going to hold them accountable. A south Texas looney is going to be exposed. But when the dust settles nobody is going to be arrested. And Dan will go to his grave with "could not vouch for authenticity but the memos were right".
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Vote early. Vote often. The Democrate way...

[m_drummond]

What's most amazing is the hard core Left (tinfoil hats, moonbats, wing-nuts) has become the mainstream of the Donk party. When else has this happened in history? Did it lead to that civilization/country collapse?
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Washington medical marijuana dispensaries

[Anker-Klanker]

[homesteader]

Anyone heard of or seen Ben Barnes since he was outed by his daughter? He has direct links to 60 Minutes, the DNC and Kerry.

[sevry]

[cipher]

[Denis]

Rathergate hit the nation’s consciousness right between the eyes as a result of the intense focus of a bird of prey on a small mammal hiding in the weeds, the forged memos. Now, however, flashlights are waving in all directions and focusing on none, or not focusing long enough to establish things critical to the chain of events. The focus has to get put on Max Cleland, the only person in the known cast of characters who fits the initial CBS-Rather stonewall of the ‘unimpeachable source’.

The timeline, as well as the limited cast, points over and over to Mad Max, and if that is the case, that’s what’s being desperately hidden, because Max is, after all, a co-chair of the Kerry-Edwards campaign.

Please follow this, remembering the oft repeated ‘unimpeachable source’:

August 21st: As reported in the NY Times and elsewhere, Burkett sends the e-mail which tells of his speaking to Cleland, about countering the SwiftVets, ending with:

"So I gave them the information to do it with," Mr. Burkett wrote. "But none of them have called me back."

Has anyone done a lockdown on the Kinko records? When Burkett says he ‘gave’ the info to Cleland and the Kerry campaign, was this giving by fax? The now famous header with the Kinko’s number indicated those docs were sent to CBS on September 2nd (Wash Post), but it is also reported that Burkett had an account at that Kinko’s. Did he use their fax more regularly?

August 25th: Not a great day for Cleland, only four days after speaking to Burkett, and desperate to do something about those damned Swiftees. He tries the letter to Bush at the ranch stunt. It doesn’t go as Cleland would have wanted, as even the ‘fellow traveler’ press is smirking at a brazen and even amateurish stunt. On the other hand, there is that old thing about ‘motive and opportunity’. Motive is a no brainer. Opportunity? No matter how badly the stunt went, it was still a media event, and Cleland spent a good part of the day in the company of reporters from all over. Was there opportunity to pass copies of memos received, say, by fax, to someone at CBS? If that was done, and that was the route, what kind of bona fides did that almost automatically grant to the memos? If the memos get to Mapes and Rather, what do they have? Not memos given them by loose-cannon Burkett (They have Nexus and know who Burkett is, and that as recently as the previous February Burkett’s credibility was burned by the Globe after the NY Times used him as a source, and the Times was also singed in the process). These came from a former Senator, a triple amputee Vietnam Vet who just happened to head the Veterans’ Administration, and a not unlikely member of a future Kerry cabinet or executive department head. Would someone with that background, who one would presume had a good deal of familiarity with military style documents, immediately lend to the memos a patina of credibility? Cleland had to say nothing endorsing them, and of course he had to, for obvious reasons, remain unidentified, but the very act of Cleland transferring them gave the docs a legitimacy if that is what happened.

Notice how CBS never, as far as we know, checked with anyone with a military background to determine if these even appeared military, except, retired General Hodges, who never even sees them. What was CBS satisfied they got from Hodges? Only that when he heard some of their contents read to him, they sounded like they fit what could be so written at the time in such memos. This was, for CBS, pro forma. They verified the legitimacy that these were in accord with actual military type docs, and had to do so, because until they got Hodges to say that, they would have had to rely on the source they had to keep quiet about: Cleland. What they got from Hodges was by no means verification of the docs, but vindication of what they had already concluded from receiving the memos from Cleland. They treated it as a loose end, rather than a serious question.

On the very same August 25th, Burkett posts his piece for ONLineJournal, in which he writes:

“George W. Bush, you may be the president [sic]. But I know that you lied. I know from your files that we have now reassembled, the fact that you did not fulfill your oath, taken when you were commissioned to "obey the orders of the officers appointed over you”.

Mary Mapes and WHEN for goshsakes!

Every, and I mean every single source I’ve found, and there are many, that write of the Mary Mapes visit to Burkett says ‘during the summer’. Can that be narrowed down, perhaps? Does CBS have expense reports, airline receipts, anything that would let us know whether she saw Mapes on June 30th, July 15th, or between the August 21st date and when Burkett says he gave something to Cleland, and the September 2nd date when CBS got the faxed memos from Kinkos?

The very next day, September 3rd, Burkett posts the Internet message saying that CBS was about to do something big about Bush, adding "No proof, just gut instinct…"

September 4th:

At Mapes’ request, Lockhart speaks to Burkett. Previously, Burkett seemed miffed that no one at the Kerry campaign had called him back after his discussion with Cleland. Burkett’s attorney, Van Os, stated that Burkett had a longstanding distrust of the press. Mapes says that she set up the call at Burkett’s request. It was already public knowledge, via Burkett himself, that he had already spoken to Cleland, and it is almost inconceivable that he wouldn’t have said as much to Mapes or someone at CBS. So why didn’t Mapes call Cleland and ask him to call Burkett? Both men are Vets, near the same age, take comparable positions on Bush, etc. Lockhart does not appear to be the kind of guy, a fairly slick press secretary, that Burkett would be comfortable with, but a man like Cleland who already told Burkett what he wanted to hear about hitting the Swift issue hard, would seem a lot more compatible and the obvious choice, unless…Cleland was intentionally being left out of the picture for what used to be called ‘plausible deniability’.

September 8th:

Sometime shortly before the CBS broadcast on September 8th, the DNC and Kerry campaign begin to coordinate the ‘Fortunate Son’ ad campaign, to dovetail with the CBS report. CBS airs the memo story, with a confidence that lasts for a week in the face of a rising tide of skepticism. The folks at CBS News and Rather are not just fools or fanatical partisans to the extent that they would throw away any and all journalistic standards. Something made them give these forgeries an awful lot of credence, and they were saying that, over and over: unimpeachable source!

CBS broadcasts the show, the firestorm hits, and CBS and Rather are feeling extremely secure and even cocky for several days! It is abundantly established that they believed so firmly in those memos that even hedging by their own experts and outright denial of their reliability by Killian’s family members didn’t dissuade them.

So ultimately Rather presents another show, the gist of which is that poor old confused Bill Burkett misled CBS! Bull!

According to the transcript of that show, Rather said to Burkett:

"We were trying to get the chain of possession...and it's true, we pressured you because it was a very important point for us."

No it wasn’t important, that chain of possession! It was a pro forma tie up of what was only a secondary loose end and alternate source to keep someone else in the dark. What is the proof that Rather had just lied? Simple: if it was a very important point, why didn’t CBS try to contact the man whose name Burkett had given them?????? They never did. Pro forma, because the hidden source was the unimpeachable one who got the ball rolling in the first place, and informed Mapes and CBS that Burkett had the goods on Bush.

This has to focus for some period on Cleland, and get the questions out that Cleland needs to answer.

From what I could find, or rather not find, by Googling Cleland, Cleland is not addressing any of this, or more importantly, even being asked about it.

No one in the known cast of characters could have provided the, well, patina of ‘gravitas’ these forgeries had with CBS, other than Max Cleland, and he is also, if he was the ‘unimpeachable source’, the one CBS can’t identify as such without this becoming much, much worse for both CBS and the Democrats.

Denis Keohane

[Tom Poole]

Say goodnight Dan and to help you sleep (LOL):

[wvobiwan]

[Denis]

[quote="wvobiwan"]

[wvobiwan]

Bump.
_________________
Doug
"Proud of my Dad, 2-tour veteran of VN."
Kerry/Edwards Foreign Policy Slogan: Accept our surrender or we'll sue!

[jwb7605]