FoxNews: Burkett Admits to Being the Source (Duh!) and Says He Passed Docs to Max Cleland

Thanks to Mike:

The man who gave CBS (search) controversial documents that have fueled a firestorm of controversy over President Bush's Vietnam-era Texas Air National Guard (search) service has admitted that he deliberately misled the television network, CBS said Monday in a statement.

Over the weekend, CBS' veteran news anchor Dan Rather (search) flew to Texas to interview Bill Burkett (search), a man who was believed by some to be the source of the memos.

CBS said Monday that Burkett did in fact mislead a CBS News producer about the documents. The network acknowledged that, based upon subsequent reporting on questions about the documents, it cannot prove they are authentic and therefore, they should not have been used in its "60 Minutes" report on Sept. 8.

"Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, also admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source," network spokeswoman Kelli Edwards said in the statement.

Burkett's full interview will be aired on Monday night's edition of "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather," from 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. EDT.

...

Burkett has urged Democratic activists to wage "war" against Republican "dirty tricks."

Adding more fuel to the fire, Burkett, who lives in Abilene, Texas, has now also said that he passed the documents on to former Sen. Max Cleland, a Georgia Democrat and triple amputee from Vietnam, who is working with the Kerry campaign.

Burkett's had a long-running feud with Bush over health benefits and the Texas National Guard. Bob Hunter, a Republican legislator who investigated Burkett's charges, told FOX News he found them to be groundless.

I'm ever so glad that CBS News wouldn't employ the opinions or claims of "poltical partisans" in putting together its story.

Meanwhile... "Internet political partisans" of a liberal stripe are suddenly angry about news organizations rushing to print unsubstantiated allegations-- unfortunately failing to notice that Burkett himself has substantiated this particular allegation.

It never fails, does it? Whenever there's a story that seems to hurt liberals, liberals immediately begin claiming it's a "distraction" from the "real issues," i.e., the issues that can be used to hurt conservatives.