Bill Burkett: Master Eavesdropper, Deeply Troubled Man, and………………Reliable Source, according to Dan Rather
Background
Bill Burkett, Rather’s source for the Killian memos, appears to be a nut job.
I’ll leave it to bloggers with a cop’s or lawyer’s attention to details to do that thing that the blogosphere does so well, but it looks to me that Bill Burkett and his stories are about to come a cropper. (Addendum, 24 hours later and it’s done!: Ed Morrissey does it to Burkett by showing the timeline of his rants and actions, among other things. Allahpundit too.)
Burkett is the fellow who is suspected of being the source for the Killian memos. They were faxed to CBS from a Kinko’s in Abilene, some 21 miles from his home in Baird, Texas, according to the ever-greater Michael Dobbs. And Howard Kurtz has Rather acknowledging problems:
CBS anchor Dan Rather acknowledged for the first time yesterday that there are serious questions about the authenticity of the documents he used to question President Bush’s National Guard record last week on “60 Minutes.” “If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I’d like to break that story (sorry, you’re 168 hours behind Powerline),” Rather said in an interview last night. “Any time I’m wrong, I want to be right out front and say, ‘Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.’ “
Just in time, Dan. I’m confident we’ll know quite a lot about Mr. Burkett’s life in a couple of days, and he sure looks strange to me.
Burkett’s Highly Suspicious Stories
Let’s start with his story about how he overheard in 1997 General Daniel James on the “speakerphone” with a Bush aide being told to sanitize documents. He eavesdropped on this conversation because the secretary was out, and provides us the detail which makes me know he’s lying (via Calpundit):
The occurrences here occurred in the early months, the spring months of 1997….I had meant to simply go in and, best I recall….I went in to ask a quick question, it was just a passing question, or maybe pass along some information, I don’t remember specifically. I went into General [Daniel] James’ outer office, Henrietta Valderes was not there, but the door was slightly ajar, I’d say roughly eight inches, and the reason I say eight inches is only because I wear a size seven and a half hat and I just basically stuck my head inside.
Ladies and gentlemen: beware the unnecessary embroidering detail. It almost guarantees a lie: he has to define 8″ by reference to his hat size? It is the false realism of the liar. Now compare this: he can’t remember what was said in the conversation:
Kevin Drum: And what was the conversation?
“Well, that’s where you really need to get Jim [Moore] because we have made sure that the words, I’m not going to get messed up on that deal. We’ve tried to make sure that the words were exact. I wish that you could get at least that part of the book faxed to you or something, I think that’s very important that the words are exactly right.”
Kevin Drum: I’d sure like to have as much I could here to make sure it’s accurate….
“I’m taking a look at one of his, and I’m going to have to, I’ve got a little draft of it, I’m trying to find the location as we speak, and maybe I can come back to that in a moment. Kevin, I’m going to try to help you all I can, and I’m going to trust that you’ll at least treat me fairly.”
At the end of our conversation Burkett said he would call me back with the correct quote later, but I was being injected with cortisone when he called. We played phone tag for the rest of the day but never got back in touch.
So Burkett can’t keep his story straight without notes, yet he’s got all sorts of details about his lurking in open doorways listening to powerful people ordering misdeeds on speakerphones. Oh yeah, he did in again the very next day. This time it’s even more bizarre, since he describes having dinner with a friend at which he says he described what were apparently events in the future:
I told him the next morning, I was again in the command suite, I was in the doorwell of the Quality Coordinator’s office, and there was a gathering of people about to go into a meeting in the conference room of the command group. That gathering included General James, General [Wayne] Marty, Colonel Goodwin, and maybe one or two others. And I was standing there and we were talking slightly and an individual walked into that horseshoe hallway. The coffee machine is just in the hallway, is what it is, and anytime there’s a group there at the coffeepot they block traffic. And general officers, as people will tell you, block traffic anyway.
Two individuals walked in. I didn’t know either one of them personally, but I do know that General James addressed one and said, General [John] Scribner, the folks from downtown are going to come out, Karen Hughes and [Dan] Bartlett are going to come out and they’re, and I’m paraphrasing here, are going to come out and they’re going to write a book about the governor for use in the reelection campaign or whatever else is going to follow on, and they need you to open access to your files and retained records. And there was a quick addition to that by General Marty, “and make sure there’s nothing in there that’ll embarrass the governor.”
Burkett is a prime source for Jim Moore’s hit books on Bush, and quite a fellow indeed.
Burkett’s Two Nervous Breakdowns and Exotic Disease (meningoencephalitis)
According to the Ace of Spades, Burkett blames Bush for denying him medical treatment for nervous breakdowns. Steve Verdon has a lot of discussion of Burkett here and here. Burkett also believes that he has faced “threats against my life and that of my family”
I prefer to let Burkett’s own words speak for themselves. And I ask you to consider this: what would you make of thirty year old memos you got from the author of this article found at Veterans for Peace:
March 19, 2003—I’ve sat in total grief for the past three years, watching the institutions of America being spent as if they were lottery winnings.
I don’t want to say it, “But I told you so.”
In January of 1998 and what seems like a full lifetime ago, I was stricken by a deadly case of meningoencephalitis. I was returning from a short duty trip to Panama as a team chief to inspect the hand over of Ft. Clayton to the Panamanians. I had been ‘loaned’ from the senior staff and state planning officer of the Texas National Guard to the Department of the Army for a series of these special projects after angering George W. Bush by refusing to falsify readiness information and reports; confronting a fraudulent funding scheme which kept ‘ghost’ soldiers on the books for additional funding, and refusing to alter official personnel records [of George W. Bush].
George W. Bush and his lieutenants were mad. They ordered that I not be accessed to emergency medical care services, healthcare benefits I earned by my official duty; and I was withheld from medical care for 154 days before I was withdrawn from Texas responsibility by the Department of the Army, by order of the White House.
I was a pawn then caught in a struggle for right and wrong, but also caught within a political struggle between a man who would do anything to be ‘king’ of America and an institution of laws that we knew as America.
Burkett sees himself as a VIP and Bush as Hitler
Mr. Burkett seems to be among the most well connected men in America:
The only benefits that we have received have come at the end of a court order; and they have been under constant challenge. Needless to say, we know the White House counsel personally. We know Dan Bartlett, Karen Hughes, Joe Allbaugh, Don Evans, and many others very personally. Dick Cheney used to be a close friend. No longer.
So when asked by many “what should we do?” on this beautiful, but very sad morning, I can’t help but remind everyone that for over three years, since the spring 2000 campaign, I have forecasted the actions that have taken place in great detail. I know GW Bush and his inner circle very well.
Finally, there seems to be an evil trinity in the mind of Burkett. There’s Bush, Hitler, and Napolean:
I used to feel hope. Before my illness, I felt exhilaration at the prospects of the day. After my illness, I felt hope that I might work hard to live. Now I feel sickness that today another massive group of people, held worthless by this anointed king, will be trampled upon like grapes. But their blood will not be rendered into wine. It will be spilled into the sands of this desert or another, or on the streets of Washington, or in the halls of the US Congress, or in the courts.
But there is a difference from any phenomenon previously faced by a spoiled American populace. With Teddy Roosevelt, we badgered and dented him into listening; with Franklin Roosevelt, we tenaciously talked until he listened; with William Jefferson Clinton, we crippled him through deceit and his own frailties. But none were anointed as king.
We must now revert to the history of Europe to discern what to do. We must study the nemesis of France and how Napoleon was felled before understanding the damage a tyrant does to a nation and society. We must examine the ruthless and dictatorial rise of yet another of the three small men—one whose name is not spoken out of fear of reprisal, but his name was Adolf. We must examine history, in order to not repeat it, and to understand the mesmerism of a public to a murderous scheme.
Conclusion
This is Dan Rather’s source, a raving lunatic. Great reporting, Dan.