ODD CRITICAL QUOTE FROM BRINKLEY
Remember Douglas Brinkley? The historian who wrote "Tour of Duty," the biography of John Kerry's war years, er, months?
He's quoted in the New York Times today, saying something rather odd:
"Every American now knows that there's something really screwy about George Bush and the National Guard, and they know that John Kerry was not the war hero we thought he was," said Douglas Brinkley, the historian and author of a friendly biography of Mr. Kerry's war years, acknowledging that Mr. Kerry's opponents had succeeded in raising questions about his service.
"It's kind of neutralized itself, just by tiring everybody out," Mr. Brinkley said.
Thought One: What is screwy about George Bush and the National Guard? Please cite a witness that has neither claimed that Bush was "selected, not elected" (Knox) or raised a half million dollars for the Kerry campaign (Ben Barnes).
Thought Two: Gee, Mr. Brinkley, who led us to believe that John Kerry was "the war hero we thought he was"? It wouldn't be someone who wrote a glossy biography that ignored negative accounts and painted Kerry in the best possible light, now would it?
AP: BUSH UP 7
AP: Bush has a 7-point lead over Sen. John Kerry - 52 percent to 45 percent among likely voters - in the AP-Ipsos survey less than six weeks before the Nov. 2 election. Independent Ralph Nader was backed by 1 percent.
SO WHAT DID BURKETT AND LOCKHART TALK ABOUT?
Bill Burkett's interview with the Fort Worth Star Telegram is... odd. The most interesting point would appear to be this section:
Burkett said he agreed to a taped interview with Rather on Monday as suspicion about the documents mounted. Key portions of the interview were never aired, he said.
"He snipped it apart to cover them," he said. "That's all that that evening news was — to find a fall guy. And it was me.
"By his action and inaction, Dan Rather ruined my reputation in front of 70 million people."
Burkett, a West Texas rancher and known critic of Bush, denied that his work with CBS was done at the behest of Democrat John Kerry's presidential campaign.
He said, however, that during the meeting in which he gave the documents to CBS, he was also told by a producer that his phone number would be passed on to Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart.
"I was absolutely and clearly told that that was as far as anyone could go without crossing the line of [journalistic] ethics," Burkett said.
During a single phone conversation with Lockhart, Burkett said he suggested a "couple of concepts on what I thought [Kerry] had to do" to beat Bush. In return, he said, Lockhart tried to "convince me as to why I should give them the documents."
According to the Associated Press, Lockhart said he listened to some campaign advice from Burkett for a few minutes and does not recall talking about Bush's National Guard records.
Of course, how reliable is anything Burkett says now?
Of course, how reliabe is anything that Joe Lockhart says at any time?
No comments:
Post a Comment