"What did they know, and when did they know it?" Feldman shows the way. Will anybody follow?
Who knew?
September 23rd, 2004
American Thinker
An examination of the timeline of publicly-reported events leading up to the Rathergate scandal raises some interesting questions about possible as-yet unrevealed collusion among Bill Burkett, members of the national press corps, and the Kerry campaign. Someone other than CBS and Burkett appears to have known about the phony documents, and spread the word quietly, in preparation for a massive coordinated campaign to discredit President Bush.
On April 27, Kerry campaign literature suddenly claimed that there were "verbal orders" from Killian to suspend Bush for failing to take his medical exam. Shortly afterward (in "May" according to Burkett's ex-lawyer, Van Os) Burkett began getting calls from "national newspapers and TV." How did these reporters suddenly and mysteriously find their way to Baird, Texas within days of the Kerry campaign piece?
Unless you believe that a number of journalists saw a lodestar leading them, like Magi, to the doorstep of Bill Burkett in search of memos (which seem to have been created shortly before), the more reasonable conclusion is that someone pointed them in that direction.
CBS indicates Mary Mapes, the segment producer, had been in communication with Burkett for 18 months prior to the Sixty Minutes show, which puts her in this pack of reporters. But who else was in on the scam? We are told that Mapes and the CBS team were obsessed with their “scoop,” so they certainly didn’t tip-off the competition.
Members of the national press corps know something critical about the story – who was peddling the documents. Yet none have yet revealed themselves. In the midst of biggest journalistic scandal in decades, they are holding their tongues. Who directed them to Burkett? And when?
The public wants to know. And, given the fact that this scandal bears directly on the forthcoming presidential election, we have a right to know. The press corps, the schools of journalism, and all those nonprofit organizations which never tire of giving awards to journalists for “outstanding public service,” are almost completely silent on the obligation of the “profession” of journalism to purge itself of what looks like corrupt collusion to spread forgeries.
From the press reports the timeline is fairly clear, though, unlike CBS, I am not vouching for anybody's credibility.
We don't know when all of these memos were created. But based on technical evidence, one appears to have been created on February 6, 2004.
On February 12, less than a week later, USA Today reported that there had been efforts to cleanse Bush's record. The source for this story was Burkett. The next day the Boston Globe contacted George O. Conn, former Chief Warrant Officer in TANG ,who flatly denied Burkett's claim, saying he never saw anyone combing through the Bush records or discarding any of them.
Shortly afterward according to Van Os (Burkett's ex-lawyer) Burkett received a call from a man (Burkett says a woman, Lucy Ramirez) telling him he had documents confirming Burkett's story that Bush was ordered to take his medical exam and refused to do so. Burkett says he was busy but agreed to pick them up at Houston on March 3, and says did so.
So how did these reporters, so close in time to the Kerry communication on this same point, suddenly get the idea, in late April/early May, that Burkett had documents on Bush's TANG service? And why would they seek documents which probably could not have existed, if they gave credence to Conn, who said the story was false?
Was someone spreading the word? How would the person who gave the cue to the press know there was something there, unless he were involved in creating the documents and passing them to Burkett? And, if that's so, reporters other than Mapes who contacted Burkett are in the best position to crack this mystery.
There must have been others also in the know. How else to explain that on August 11 the Chairman of the Tennessee State Vets for Kerry hinted on a radio interview that there was new evidence regarding Bush's failure to take his medical exam and loss of flight status? This is particularly curious because on August 13 Burkett posted an internet article indicating that he had not yet seen documentary evidence of the claim.
But it is approximately this time (mid-August is the best date CBS has given) when Burkett gave CBS the first 2 of the 6 memos. On August 21, Burkett posted on the web that he had spoken to Max Cleland, who said he did want to mount a "counterattack" to the Swift Boats campaign.
Four days later, Burkett posted on the web that "we have reassembled" the Bush files. No explanation is given for whom the “we” refers to. Nor is the meaning of “reassamebled” clear. And a time frame is notably absent. But according to Burkett and Van Os (if you choose the believe them), the phony memos had been in his hands since March 3. The only new development is that by August 21 he had turned 2 of them over to CBS.
By September, it is clear that someone either within CBS or Kerry's camp (or both) was leaking the details of the story. On September 1, liberal blogger Josh Marshall reported that Sixty Minutes was working on a story about Bush's service, and on September 2 , Salon reported that there were "unanswered questions" respecting the President's service in TANG.
Two days later, Lockhart called Burkett. Lockhart says he's 99.9% sure he didn't discuss the memos. This is not terribly believable, because by this time Texans for Truth was about to launch its ad campaign, Operation Fortunate Son, in which these documents would be certain to play a big supporting role. The scent of collusion is obvious to me. But then I was the first kid in my class to figure out there was no Santa Claus.
The next day, September 5, Burkett gave the remaining 4 memos to CBS. And the very next day, Terry McAuliffe issued a release raising questions about Bush's service. The DNC followed this up with yet another presser on the same topic on September 7.
On September 8 the CBS story runs.
The DNC must have worked very hard that evening because it gave three more pressers on the topic on September 9.
The next day the Boston Globe got a TANG document dump; Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times wrote a TANG piece; Texans for Truth began running its Operation Fortunate Son ads; and McAuliffe held a press conference alleging the President was AWOL.
+++++++++++++++++
To maximize a campaign story, one must plant seeds in the public mind about it beforehand and get the troops in line to capitalize on it after it breaks. It is hard for me to look at this timeline and (assuming the parties have told the truth) not see judicious leaks ahead of time, and a well-planned campaign to maximize its impact once the story broke.
And it is even harder to imagine all this without believing that whoever gave the documents to Burkett also told the press that Burkett had them. That person may also have been the one contacting the Tennesee State Vets for Kerry, Texans for Truth and the DNC.
Just who do you suppose would do all of that?
Clarice Feldman |
