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A "fiendishly clever plot" (Burkett/CBS)

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Aries Donating Member (544 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 08:45 AM
Original message
A "fiendishly clever plot" (Burkett/CBS)
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2004/09/lucy-ramirez.html

...Burkett said he arranged to get the documents during a trip to Houston for a livestock show in March. But instead of being met at the show by Ramirez, he was approached by a man who asked for Burkett, handed him an envelope and quickly left, Burkett recounted.

'I didn't even ask any questions,' Burkett said. 'Should I have? Yes. Maybe I was duped. I never really even considered that.'

By Monday, USA TODAY had not been able to locate Ramirez or verify other details of Burkett's account. Three people who worked with Killian in the early 1970s said they don't recognize her name. Burkett promised to provide telephone records that would verify his calls to Ramirez, but he had not done so by Monday night.

An acquaintance of Burkett, who he said could corroborate his story, said he was at the livestock show on March 3. The woman, who asked that her name not be used, said Burkett asked if he could put papers inside a box she had at the livestock show. Often, she said, friends ask to store papers in her box that verify their purchases at the livestock auction. She said she did not know the nature of the papers Burkett gave her, and he did not say anything about them."


This is a fiendishly clever plot, and Burkett is indeed the patsy. Burkett never even saw 'Lucy Ramirez', who is no doubt the employee of the plotters (there is beginning to be speculation about which Republican dirty trickster is actually behind the plot). He can't tie the documents back to anyone (it's like James Earl Ray trying to convince people of the existence of 'Raoul'). Burkett was chosen as the plotters knew he really hated Bush and had a particular issue with Bush's military service which would make him leap at the chance of distributing documentary evidence embarrassing to Bush, he had enough prominence and credibility to be able to interest CBS, he could be tied to the Democrats (a particularly sweet point for the plotters), and he had no expertise in documents. Indeed, he insisted that CBS verify the documents as he had his own doubts. Had the plotters gone directly to CBS with the forged documents, CBS would have been a lot more careful. As it was, Burkett's enthusiasm for attacking Bush led him to lie to CBS about their provenance (I wonder if 'Lucy Ramirez' suggested that to him), and the combination of Burkett's reputation and his lie made CBS blind to any problems they should have seen in the whole scenario (and at least some at CBS were almost certainly in on the plot). Once CBS and Burkett had been led down the garden path, the plotters arranged for 'Buckhead' to be armed with the technical information required to challenge the authenticity of the documents, and the set up was complete. Since the challenge was supposedly by bloggers just interested in the truth, the fact that over 90 per cent of the real substance of the attack came directly from a Republican operative passed unnoticed. It didn't hurt that the disgusting American press was able to write the story as the populist bloggers challenging, and beating, big, bad CBS....
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LisaLynne Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 08:50 AM
Response to Original message
1. I'm not big into ...
conspiracy theories, but you know, the other point I would add to this would be that the Freepers were really, really quick to jump on the fact that they were forgeries, at least in my opinion. Almost as though they had already been given their marching orders and specifically what to look at in the documents to discredit them.
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hewitt Donating Member (138 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 08:53 AM
Response to Original message
2. Last night's Waco news reported
(with great excitement) that the local Kinkos (on Bosque Blvd) was used to make the copies of the documents Burkett receieved. It was reported that Burkett then BURNED the originals in the parking lot.

Okay, what do we know about Burkett? I wonder how legitimate he is. Why on earth would you burn your insurance, the originals? This is such a fishy story. I do believe this is a republican plot, but I wonder about Burkett's innocence.
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SheepyMcSheepster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 09:52 AM
Response to Reply #2
12. i had read that he was told to burn the original documents
by the person who game them to him, so as not to have any type of evidence linking the source to the documents. sorry don't remember name of the alleged source.
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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 12:50 PM
Response to Reply #12
19. He can't be stupid enough to have burned the only evidence to validate
his story...He's not some yokel off the streets... That "burning originals in the parking lot" suggest that he was put up to this. Maybe for money? He's not well and maybe needs the fund.

And, if he told CBS he had originals but he burned them, they were in cahoots to go with this story, because either they would have requested the originals (the CBS lawyers) or if told they were burned (lawyers would have had flags...suspicious. There's no way corporate lawyers of the type a company like VIACOM has for CBS would fall for this ...unless.....
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DoYouEverWonder Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 10:05 AM
Response to Reply #2
13. Because he's and honest but elderly career Vet
who was easy to take advantage of.

Plus, there is a lot of information on the internet about Burkett. Just look it up. He's been telling his story for 5 years now, to anyone who would listen. He even made the rounds of the news shows last March.
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ewagner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 08:53 AM
Response to Original message
3. Hard to pass up
a really good mystery.

In the grand scheme of things this will probably not amount to much in the final outcome of the campaign, but the story is intriguing and almost addictive.
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dweller Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 09:42 AM
Response to Reply #3
11. more mystery here
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NewYorkerfromMass Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 08:58 AM
Response to Original message
4. The documents were typed. Buckhead's criticism is groundless
the only fishy thing now is the provenance.
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Aries Donating Member (544 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 09:04 AM
Response to Original message
5. "Anatomy of a Rove Dirty Trick"
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/002815.html

...With the controversy of Bush's National Guard records raised by the Swift Boat Veteran smears, Rove found a perfect opportunity for going after Dan Rather. CBS had planned to report on the Bush National Guard story. Then before they went with their story, new documents that put some extra oomp in the story fell into their hands. However, these new documents needed to be vetted before they could be used. As the LA Times reported,

It was 11 a.m. on Sept. 8 — nine hours before "60 Minutes" was to air. But as news executives debated whether to broadcast a story on newly obtained paperwork offering fresh evidence about President Bush's National Guard service, a big question hung over CBS News' Westside headquarters: Were the photocopied documents real or fake?

Suddenly, the answer seemed to materialize, and from an unlikely source — the White House itself.


John Roberts, the network's White House correspondent, called to report he'd just completed an on-camera interview with Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. Bartlett, it appeared, had no quarrel with the authenticity of the documents.

That was the turning point.

"If we had gotten back from the White House any kind of red flag, raised eyebrow, anything that said, 'Are you sure about this stuff?' we would have gone back to square one," Josh Howard, the program's executive producer, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview Friday. "The White House said they were authentic, and that carried a lot of weight with us."
....

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kokomo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 09:23 AM
Response to Reply #5
6. Remember it was CBS who brought us Abu Ghraib and Janet Jackson's breast!
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NewYorkerfromMass Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 09:24 AM
Response to Reply #5
7. What did White House communications director Dan Bartlett say? eom
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Aries Donating Member (544 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 09:32 AM
Response to Reply #7
8. According to the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31727-2004Sep18.html

Later, Bartlett would explain why he did not challenge the documents with a question: "How am I supposed to verify something that came from a dead man in three hours?"
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NewYorkerfromMass Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 10:33 AM
Response to Reply #8
17. Did he present them to Bush?
I am sure he did.
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AngryAmish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 09:37 AM
Response to Original message
9. I think CBS got screwed by their lawyers
Nothing in the docs are libelous because President Asshole is a public figure, so their lawyers gave it the green light. They relied on their lawyers advice and aired the story. The rest, as the Professor said, was history.
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maxsolomon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 09:39 AM
Response to Original message
10. oswald. sirhan. burkett.
you should be more careful when you play with BFEE fire. what did he expect? a perfect dupe.

burkett knew that sr. is long time CIA, and jumbled up in the kennedy assasinations. he knew they believe in one thing: power. he knew they have no honor.

CBS please get to the bottom of this. if you can stick it on a GOP operative, the election is over.
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progressivebydesign Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 10:12 AM
Response to Original message
14. I think the info about the White House adds a delicious turn to this...
.. CBS went ahead after the White House raised no objections to the memos??? AND.. since when does the White House ever take a pass on something like this? Really. There is NO way the White House lawyers would not be all over those papers, had they not known about this ahead of time. Let's be practical. Damning memos about Bush are waved ahead, yet most everything else about Bush's service has been attempted to be hidden.

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RandomKoolzip Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 10:32 AM
Response to Original message
15. Do any republicans ever feel any emotions besides the desire
to "get revenge?" It seems like that's the only motivating force behind any of their actions.

And they hold grudges longer than elephants do. Something tells me this (the conservative movement's coup d'etat of the government and the media) is all just revenge for Watergate (or maybe even the pillorying of Agnew!).
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 10:32 AM
Response to Original message
16. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
pacalo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 12:18 PM
Response to Original message
18. Let's not overlook "Buckhead"...
& his connections to Karl Rove. This was definitely a set up.

Here at DU, we have a true hero, Walt Starr. It took a Karl Rove operator to try to play catchup with DU for Free Republic. The significant difference is that Walt Starr righted a wrong, and "Buckhead", an undercover Rove operative, was using the freeper board to cause destruction.

Read all about "Buckhead" here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-buckhead18sep18,1,1674359.story?coll=la-home-headlines
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ewagner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-04 01:34 PM
Response to Original message
20. Somebody was looking for this guy..........
GOP direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie schmoozed with African American radio host Armstrong Williams, calling him "my unknown brother here." Viguerie praised the "new alternative media" for daring to swim against the tide: "For six weeks, the Swift Boat and Dan Rather stories have kept Kerry's campaign frozen below the water."

took this from WaPo gossip column...........
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