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David Van Os is Burkett's attorney and I am on one of his email lists. He has been very good about trying to get the right information out about what is going on. Hope this helps answer your question.
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Fellow Democrats on these Lists:
Listen. Please. Bill Burkett did not go to CBS with the documents. They came to him and, as Dan Rather acknowledged on the air, pressured Bill to give them the documents. Bill had been given the documents - unsolicited by him - by another person. CBS pestered Bill for several weeks over whether he had any Bush National Guard documents, apparently because of Bill's appearance on Hardball in February. Bill was very reluctant to turn the documents over to the press because he knew - and how strongly he has been proven correct by recent events - that it would make him the center of a media feeding frenzy, and he did not want to go through that again, having experienced it in February. Bill finally, reluctantly, yielded to CBS's pressure for the documents, on 2 conditions. (1) That CBS honor his confidentiality, because he did not want to have to endure another media storm, and (2) that CBS not use the documents unless they check everything out to make sure the documents were authentic.
Point (2) is essential to understand this. Bill Burkett DID NOT represent to CBS that the documents were authentic or vouch for their authenticity. He had some pieces of paper, CBS wanted them, he did not know if they were authentic documents, he did not seek or urge publication of the documents, all he did was tell CBS okay okay you can have them, but it is up to you to decide what to make of them or whether to use them, I am not a document examiner and do not pretend to be, I do not have the resources to investigate these documents nor have I intended to do anything with them, you are a huge corporation with the resources to investigate them if you want to, all I am is a passive receptacle in this, it is your responsibility to determine whether they are authentic if you want to use them, so okay I will give them to you but only on the condition that you make sure they are authentic before you use them. That's it folks. It wasn't Bill's idea to publicize the documents, it was CBS's, and Bill did not vouch for their authenticity because he did not have any way of knowing what he had, all he did was let CBS have what it wanted, and he went to pains to make sure that CBS understood that it was its responsibility to make sure they were genuine if they were going to use them. There was zero personal gain in this for Bill, and nothing but lots of potential headaches for him, and the recent events have borne out his worse fears of what the un-free press will do at the behest of the Rove spin machine to any person who questions The Leader's background of hypocrisy regarding his alleged military service.
Yes, Bill did give CBS some untrue information about his source. Bill did not want his source to undergo the media frenzy that he knew would happen, so he wanted to ensure that he threw CBS off any trail to his source. Bill promised confidentiality to his source and Bill Burkett is a man of his word who will not break that promise. Things would certainly be easier for Bill now to break that promise, but to Bill Burkett a promise is a promise and he will not break it. Bill was not going to give CBS a name in any event, so there was no false identity given, because there was no identity given at all. Just some descriptive information such as where the source allegedly lived. If the source was a pink elephant living on Mars that would make no difference to the document analysis issues that Bill entrusted to CBS to resolve before any decision to publicize the documents. Any chance that might have existed for Bill's source to voluntarily come out is certainly dead now. Seeing what has happened to Bill, the source would be crazy to subject himself or herself to this media feeding frenzy now.
For the last few days I have been going through that media feeding frenzy myself, and it is no fun! It is horrible. Nobody in the press except a very few have any respect for privacy or for one's desire to be left alone. It would be tolerable if they were seeking truth, but with a very few exceptions, they are not seeking truth, they are only seeking a story, and they will play every word-trick imaginable, and some unimaginable, to get their story.
To my fellow Democratic listmates, I say the following on my honor, and I mean this seriously, on my honor as your Democratic nominee for the Texas Supreme Court. Bill Burkett did not forge any documents. Bill Burkett did not create any documents. Bill Burkett did not make any claims about the validity of the documents. Bill Burkett insisted that CBS make sure the documents were authentic before using them. Bill Burkett did not go to CBS, it came to him. Bill Burkett did not seek publication of the documents. There is a real living source who gave the documents to Bill - unsolicited by him. Bill promised the source that he would not reveal his or her identity, and he is not going to break that promise. The media will continue to hound him, the Rove machine will continue to publicly insult him, but there is nothing more they can get from Bill, except a name that he is not going to divulge, because to Bill Burkett a promise is a promise is a promise, no matter how much personal grief it causes him to honor the promise.
By the way, regarding the faxing of the documents from the Kinko's in Abilene. The first time Bill ever heard of documents being faxed from the Kinko's in Abilene was when he read about it in the Washington Post. The 60 Minutes producer is the person who used the Kinko's to fax the documents to another party. Bill had to figure this out by calling the producer to find out. Dan Rather and the rest of CBS readily acknowledge to Bill that this sloppy action was their doing.
I continue to ask myself, why is the Bush machine so quick, ferocious, and intense in going out of its way to attempt to discredit this one little broken-down, ailing, bankrupt, retired, disabled veteran? Could it be that they fear the patriotism and integrity of this one broken-down disabled veteran whom they know has the courage and heart of a lion?
All of the above is my own attempt to clear things up for Democratic e-group listmates. In the event of any discrepancy between the above and anything that Bill may subsequently say, use Bill's version over mine.
David Van Os
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