Update II: Talk about a bucket of cold water…A commenter says the story I cited this morning has been corrected by the editor (can’t they do anything right?):
This story is based on an editorial error. From that page: This article has been corrected from the version published in the newspaper and online Friday morning to reflect that Bill Burkett was referring to conversations with CBS when he said, “They tried to convince me as to why I should give them the documents.” The earlier version incorrectly reported that he had discussed the documents with Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign.
I’m not taking down Pooh Bear down, however.
Update: “CBS source denies plotting with Kerry.”
Joe Lockhart’s hand is stuck in the honey jar. Drudge is reporting:
CONTROVERSIAL TEXAS RANCHER SAYS LOCKHART WANTED DOCUMENTS // The source of a disputed CBSNEWS report claimed Thursday that Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart tried to “convince me as to why I should give them the documents.” Texas Army National Guard Lt. Col. Bill Burkett tells the FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM that he has suffered four seizures since being identified as CBS’ source and dogged by the media… Developing…
For more links and updates…
Also see “Lockhart’s Locked Lips.”
Malkin’s on top of things.
Cliff Kincaid, “Liberal Editor is Disgraced .”
FEC complaint filed against CBS.
Walter Cronkite is embarrassed.
Marvin Olasky on “Why Liberals Rule Media and Academia.”
Burkett turns on Kerry Campaign, says INDC Journal. Beldar sees no “good faith” on the part of CBS.
Semi-related: Is PayPal censoring DailyPundit, who dares to tell the truth?
More Burkett news from I Love Jet Noise, Slant Point and Captain’s Quarters. Allahpundit has even more on Burkett (popular guy.)
A little off-topic but related enough: Power Line and JustOneMinute on John Kerry the Flippery Fish.
Now you are seeing how bad the Democrats feel they have to have power. Ever since Watergate, the inference by old media is that the Republicans are the only ones capable of dirty tricks. Tsk, tsk. Watergate was a big deal because they got caught. Not that breaking into political offices is right. Both sides have been playing dirty for a long, long time. Now the shoe is on the other foot and the Democrats are going to deal with some mud on their face.
On another note: Is it me, or are more Democrats interested in running for office just to get elected and have power than getting elected to do something? This trend may by changing if some of the Republican idiots cannot get their “barbecue” spending diets under control. Something to ponder.
Comment by Chris Roberts — 09.24.04 @ 8:01 am
So, Burkett says Lockhart wanted the memos…
Lockhart says they never discussed them…
With two men with such weak credibility, which one is more likely to be telling the truth?
I an sure the true-blue koolaid believers will side with Lockhart, since that keeps the blame away from sKerry Edwards. The die hard dem-basher will side with Burkett, since his is the most damning tale…
Personally, I don’t know who to believe.
Comment by SCSIwuzzy — 09.24.04 @ 9:15 am
This is a very difficult choice. Burkett is a known liar, but Lockhart is a Clinton admin. Democrat which makes him a liar also. Who do you believe???
Comment by JasonH — 09.24.04 @ 9:43 am
Well here’s something to ponder.
Lockhart talked to Burkett before these documents were released (as far as I know this was a Lockhart admission).
Lockhart must have known about the documents. If that’s not true, what could CBS producer have said to Lockhart to make him call or agree to talk to Burkett? :-/
What’s the case for believing that the documents were not discussed?
As an aside: The New York Times has a picture of both candidates on the front page. Both candidates are with school children. Has anyone seen it. If you haven’t take a look. Those kind of targeted images make me blood boil. I’ll get over it.
Comment by John C James III — 09.24.04 @ 10:02 am
I don’t see what the big deal is. The white house got to see the memos before they were released. If there was some dirt on my opponents, I’d want to know about it. Is anyone saying they knew the memos were fake?
Comment by actus — 09.24.04 @ 11:00 am
Actus,
The white house saw the memos the day they were aired, a few hours before the 60 minutes broadcast. The lockhart/burkett conversation happened at least a week earlier than that.
That Mapes was feeding information to Kerry operatives is worth loking into. Remember, she was working the Bush guard story since 1999, so this was harldy something that just came up, or just came to her attention.
Comment by SCSIwuzzy — 09.24.04 @ 11:20 am
“That Mapes was feeding information to Kerry operatives is worth loking into. Remember, she was working the Bush guard story since 1999, so this was harldy something that just came up, or just came to her attention.”
So then she gave the info to them after having it for a long time?
From what I know, reporters often move info around when trying to get stories. When you want to talk about how pro-choice bush or kerry is, ask the pro-lifers, and so on…
Comment by actus — 09.24.04 @ 11:36 am
This is *very* interesting, and should definitely be pursued further… But it’s not exactly a smoking gun against Kerry, either. Having access to the docs is *not* the same as forging them or knowing they were forgeries. Someone handing me a counterfeit $20 bill, without my realizing it was counterfeit, is not the same as me generating counterfeit $$. (Translation: It still ain’t close to Watergate.)
Comment by Mayflower — 09.24.04 @ 12:27 pm
I think Lockhart is mostly telling the truth.
Here’s what I think happened: Mapes had already been talking to Burkett, so he knew how to get hold of her. He WANTED WANTED WANTED to be in a position of explaining to the Kerry campaign what they needed to do to win, to feed his self-importance and so on. So he told Mapes he had this hot stuff, which he would give her if she could get somebody high up in the Kerry campaign to talk to him. Mapes asked Lockhart to call, and probably told him that she could get the real dirt on Bush if he would, so he called Burkett and gave him a few minutes’ conversation for a thrill. Not paying any mind to what he said, just indulging the blowhard. Then Burkett let Mapes have the docs and it went on from there.
I hope people’s eyes are opened about what they’ve been getting from CBS. If there was the possibility of a very honest and balanced story about Bush’s National Guard service being worked on, it never would have made it to broadcast, never in a million years. The fact that these people would engage in this kind of partisan crap and not see anything wrong with it just shows how unbalanced their “news” always has been.
Comment by Laura — 09.24.04 @ 1:16 pm
Actus,
The point is that she gave the info to the Kerry campaign with enough time to mount an attack on Bush, while holding off on giving it to Bush on too short a notice to muster a defense.
That is coordination and colusion with a presidential campaign against another. Had the not told either camp and run with it, it would have been fine (forgeries aside), or if they gave it to Kerry when they gave it to Bush.
But they weren’t loking to the Kerry camp for additional info, they were tying them in so they could join the dogpile Mapes et al thought would be caused by this story.
Comment by SCSIwuzzy — 09.24.04 @ 2:58 pm
Mayflower,
Agreed. Personally, I never thought this would be the death of Kerry, but I have been hoping for CBS to get their comeuppance. To se the MSM and it’s bias and willingness to twist the news (or invent it) exposed in such a way that it cannot be easily dismissed… that is what I have been wanting, and thus far getting, out of Rathergate.
Comment by SCSIwuzzy — 09.24.04 @ 3:10 pm
I find it interesting how an independent 527’s critique of Sen. Kerry’s suspicious four month tour of duty is de facto proof that the Bush Campaign is involved. However it is ridiculous of us to be suspicious of Kerry’s involvement with Rathergate when a known democrat and Bush hater delivers forged documents to a feminazi news producer and the source of said documents calls Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign.
What a wonderful world!
Comment by Jim — 09.24.04 @ 8:15 pm
Anyone who watched Joe Lockhart lie day after day in the Clinton administration shouldn’t be surprised by his involvement in this mess. I’m not a Kerry fan and would never vote for him but when I saw that Lockhart and some other yahoo were being brought on board his campaign I figured that this campaign is far more incompetent that I had previously thought.There hasn’t been a good, half-way believable and intelligent press secretary since Pierre Salinger.
Stan in San Diego
Comment by stan — 09.24.04 @ 9:18 pm
This story is based on an editorial error. From that page:
This article has been corrected from the version published in the newspaper and online Friday morning to reflect that Bill Burkett was referring to conversations with CBS when he said, “They tried to convince me as to why I should give them the documents.” The earlier version incorrectly reported that he had discussed the documents with Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign.
Comment by dbt — 09.24.04 @ 10:19 pm
No, no, no! I’ll make the correction.
Comment by La Shawn — 09.24.04 @ 10:25 pm
What, the newpspaper doesn’t fact-check their reporting before going to press. I can understand a breaking news report either online or on air. But in print? That’s a big goof to switch from Lockhart/he to CBS/they or in the case of Mapes/she.
Kerry is doing well enough debating and defeating himself, so I don’t care/hope that this brouhaha touches him. I’ll be simply content in seeing Danny boy and his boss walking the plank with a good measure of a chilling effect on the survivors.
Comment by Andy — 09.24.04 @ 10:46 pm
The Philadelphia Inquirer today put on the front page a nice little love letter to Kerry. Explained to us unwashed masses that Kerry’s position on Iraq has been consistent and steady all this time. He just isn’t very good at explaining it so that lesser minds can follow all of the nuances.
(you can’t make stuff like this up)
I am not making this up
Comment by SCSIwuzzy — 09.24.04 @ 11:01 pm
Aww..Come on guys - can’t we all close our eyes, put our fingers in our ears and pretend we never saw the correction?
After all ‘everyone knows’ that the Kerry campaign & the DNC ‘must have been involved’.
The original quote was just ‘fake, but accurate’
Comment by Dan — 09.25.04 @ 5:59 am
Of proof, there is none.
Of logic, there is much.
Burkett has been positively obsessed with Bush’s ANG service for at least the last seven years: he was caught lying about Bush’s records being “cleansed” in 1997. The man is scarcely able to talk about anything else.
So, we are to assume that he gets his hands on what he thought were documents proving his point, but will only give them to CBS if they put him in touch with some higher-up in the Kerry campaign because his direct calls have been rebuffed as just another nut case, BUT when he finally gets ahold of Joe Lockhart, whom he has seen on TV, he talks ONLY about strategies to counter the SwiftVets, who had already faded from public view for the most part, and NOT ONE WORD about the explosive documents he had in hand and was about to give CBS.
Yeah, right.
Anyone stupid enough to believe that is surely stupid enough to vote for Kerry.
Comment by Adjoran — 09.30.04 @ 5:57 am