That's a pretty serious question. If the Kerry Campaign was involved in the memos of Ra^therGate before the story broke, it could partly explain why CBS is unwilling to disclose the trail of knowlege leading to the collapse of their credibility. The damage to the Kerry Campaign would likely sink their chances completely.

The Associated Press released news this Sunday (Hat Tip to Powerline) of an e-mail that Bill Burkett sent to a Yahoo Group for Texas Democrats on August 21st. This e-mail describes him delivering information that could "counter criticism of Kerry's Vietnam War service" to Max Cleland.

I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. (Cleland) said counterattack. So I gave them the information to do it with," Burkett wrote.

Burkett, who lives just outside of Abilene, wrote that no one at the Kerry campaign called him back.

Bill Burkett, as you recall, is the disaffected Texas Air National Guardsman who tried to sue the National Guard over medical benefits, which he lost on appeal. I hope that you noticed that Mr. Burkett lives in Abilene, which is where the certainly forged memos were faxed from. (Hat Tip to A Small Victory)

From CNSNews.com via townhall.com

Burkett has a long history with Bush, dating back to Bush's 1998 gubernatorial re-election campaign in Texas. After retiring from the Guard in January 1998 for medical reasons, Burkett accused the governor's aides of improperly inspecting Bush's records for anything embarrassing.

Similar charges surfaced in the days before the 2000 presidential election. At the time, Burkett said Bush's aides had searched military documents to resolve any conflicts between Bush's service and the account of his National Guard service in his biography.

The allegations became the subject of Burkett's 1,800 word article in March 2003, published by Veterans for Peace. It accused Bush of sending Burkett on a military assignment to Panama in retaliation for Burkett's refusal to alter Bush's official military personnel records. Burkett, who became ill after the trip, later said he had "overstated" his accusation.

Then, this February, after Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe broached the issue of Bush's record, Burkett reappeared with charges that he had overheard Bush's former gubernatorial chief of staff Joe Allbaugh in 1997 request that the Texas National Guard scrub Bush's files.

Max Cleland, as you recall, was the Democratic Senator from Georgia, a triple-amputee veteran of the Vietnam War; Fmr Senator Cleland is now a key player in the Kerry Campaign.

Fmr Senator Cleland has been considered a great asset to the Kerry Campaign. After all, Senator Kerry's "patriotism" has been under attack by conservative groups much like fmr Senator Cleland was attacked in 2002.

Democrats credit Cleland's defeat to those ads and trot him out now as a showpiece... after all, who would question the patriotism of a triple amputee veteran? The Republican party! Just like they are questioning Kerry's patriotisim!

Another Democratic Senator from Georgia, Senator Zell Miller, feels differently.

And as far as what defeated Max Cleland, it wasn't those ads that you're talking about. What defeated Max Cleland was that he had voted — and by the way, he's a wonderful friend of more than 30 years. I love him, and I campaigned for him in 2002.

But those ads didn't defeat him. What defeated him was his voting record in the United States Senate. He voted 80 percent or more with the Daschle Democrats. And you just simply can't vote with the Daschle Democrats in the United States Senate that big a percentage and hope to be elected in Georgia.

Now it seems that we are in a Quandary. The trail of accountability now seems to include the Kerry Campaign itself, unless we are going to be asked to believe that Max Cleland never shared the information with his fellow patriots in the campaign office.

AllahPundit does a great job explaining the sequence of events here. He comments on the Kerry Campaign's tacit knowledge:

If the LA Times is right, then Kerry's campaign had Burkett's information before CBS got the memos from its mystery source, a possibility that until now had seemed unlikely given the six-week timeline mentioned in the Post on September 10th. Not only that, but the story seems to have attracted Mary Mapes's renewed attention right around the same time that Kerry's people were getting stuff from Burkett. An interesting coincidence, no?

Very Interesting indeed.

I wonder how the Main Stream Media will handle this one in the coming weeks.

Posted by Michael at September 19, 2004 11:33 PM