Ace Digs In...
...and comes up Spades...
I had read Ace's work on Bill Burkett this afternoon while at the office and had intended to post a link to it this evening, but I got (understandably) delayed by tracking down the Rood story and posting it.
Unfortunately (for Dan Rather) this story is moving too fast for me to keep up, and yet another revelation has broken via Drudge that the documents faxed to CBS were apparently faxed from a Kinko's in Abilene, TX - home of one, Bill Burkett...
The smart reader at this point follows the links to Ace's site and finds out everything you need to know about Bill Burkett...Go ahead...I'll wait...
...
Back? Good...
Now the question remains: who put them together? Burkett has been out there with this story since 1999 and has hardly been a shrinking violet about telling it. So let's "question the timing"...
I refer you to my previous post on this particular topic...
As Ace makes clear in his post, this horsehockey about having to develop the "reportorial trust" that Rather claims doesn't wash. Burkett has always been willing to talk to anybody and everybody who would talk to him. He posted his story on websites and even did an interview with Kevin Drum! This is not a shy man. What happened? Are we supposed to believe he got stage fright when he finally got the national audience he has always wanted for his story? You'll have to color me unconvinced...
NO, NO, and a million times NO...I still believe that CBS/Rather did this story to coordinate with the DNC full-frontal assault on Bush's National Guard story. There are far too many "coincidences" and "convenient accidents" to ignore.
There was no "scoop" here that needed to be rushed before they were beaten by a competitor. The story has been floating around for five years! If no competitor had covered by now, then no one was ever going to...
Where was the news value in repeating a conspiracy theory by a known crackpot? Answer: there was none...The ONLY value in this story was the credibility it lent to the concurrent DNC offensive against Bush's Guard service....
Without this story, the DNC assault on Bush's Guard service was just more negative noise about 30 year old events with more potential backlash against the DNC than possible upside for them.
Buuuttt...if they were attacking Bush's credibility on the Guard issue when a (BREAKING...IMPORTANT...NEW) story with documents proving what they were saying...Well then, it's a whole different story, isn't it?
I'm afraid that Burkett will be revealed as the source of the forgeries, and the matter will be dropped as simply a black eye for CBS generally and for Dan Rather specifically. But the story shouldn't end there. It should ask the tough questions of CBS, and Burkett, about the how, when and why of the story...and it should demand answers...
It remains to be seen if CBS' competitors have the guts to go after the story they have to know is still out there waiting to be told even after Bill Burkett is exposed...
I had read Ace's work on Bill Burkett this afternoon while at the office and had intended to post a link to it this evening, but I got (understandably) delayed by tracking down the Rood story and posting it.
Unfortunately (for Dan Rather) this story is moving too fast for me to keep up, and yet another revelation has broken via Drudge that the documents faxed to CBS were apparently faxed from a Kinko's in Abilene, TX - home of one, Bill Burkett...
The smart reader at this point follows the links to Ace's site and finds out everything you need to know about Bill Burkett...Go ahead...I'll wait...
...
Back? Good...
Now the question remains: who put them together? Burkett has been out there with this story since 1999 and has hardly been a shrinking violet about telling it. So let's "question the timing"...
I refer you to my previous post on this particular topic...
As Ace makes clear in his post, this horsehockey about having to develop the "reportorial trust" that Rather claims doesn't wash. Burkett has always been willing to talk to anybody and everybody who would talk to him. He posted his story on websites and even did an interview with Kevin Drum! This is not a shy man. What happened? Are we supposed to believe he got stage fright when he finally got the national audience he has always wanted for his story? You'll have to color me unconvinced...
NO, NO, and a million times NO...I still believe that CBS/Rather did this story to coordinate with the DNC full-frontal assault on Bush's National Guard story. There are far too many "coincidences" and "convenient accidents" to ignore.
There was no "scoop" here that needed to be rushed before they were beaten by a competitor. The story has been floating around for five years! If no competitor had covered by now, then no one was ever going to...
Where was the news value in repeating a conspiracy theory by a known crackpot? Answer: there was none...The ONLY value in this story was the credibility it lent to the concurrent DNC offensive against Bush's Guard service....
Without this story, the DNC assault on Bush's Guard service was just more negative noise about 30 year old events with more potential backlash against the DNC than possible upside for them.
Buuuttt...if they were attacking Bush's credibility on the Guard issue when a (BREAKING...IMPORTANT...NEW) story with documents proving what they were saying...Well then, it's a whole different story, isn't it?
I'm afraid that Burkett will be revealed as the source of the forgeries, and the matter will be dropped as simply a black eye for CBS generally and for Dan Rather specifically. But the story shouldn't end there. It should ask the tough questions of CBS, and Burkett, about the how, when and why of the story...and it should demand answers...
It remains to be seen if CBS' competitors have the guts to go after the story they have to know is still out there waiting to be told even after Bill Burkett is exposed...
posted by Jim | 10:27 PM
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