What Did the Anchor Know, and When Did He Know It?

RatherBiased asks a good question: When, exactly, did Dan Rather learn about Bill Burkett's rather colorful past?

He first maintained his source was "unimpeachable."

RatherBiased says that the script he had prepared for his September 10 defense of the story included that word. But then, strangely, Rather changed the script, to say the story had been confirmed "by what we consider solid sources." [Emphasis added.]

Why the change? And if Rather knew at all about Bill Burkett, how could he maintain he was even a "solid" source?

Another unanswered question. Jeepers, it sure would have been nice to have a blue-ribbon independent panel checking into these things, wouldn't it have?

Related: The American Thinker speculates (a bit unclearly, alas) as to who actually made the forgeries.

The Thinker puts some emphasis on possibly erroneously-interpreted passages from an online "Bush AWOL" piece resulting in the forgeries' error as to when Bush was required to take his physical.

Which is interesting. Because as I, err, "reported" here some time ago, the forger may have stated that Staudt was exerting pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's record -- despite the fact that he had been retired for more than a year at the time -- because he trusted the Boston Globe to get Staudt's retirement date correct, which it did not.

The Globe erroneously reported he retired much later than he actually did.

Ah, the perils of being an "Internet Detective," relying only on web-searches and on-line essays when "reassembling" someone's military files.

posted by Ace at 04:01 PM

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