Newspaper logo  
 
 
  The Real Lt. Col. Burkett: In His Own Words to BBC Television

FISCAL COMMENTARY:

The Real Lt. Col. Burkett
In His Own Words to BBC Television

Shooting the Messenger Doesn't Discredit the Message

by Greg Palast

Safire in the Times, in charging that Burkett faked the document, demanded the military open a criminal investigation. Darn right they should. They haven't. Why not? Maybe they don’t want to check into this ‘fake’ document because maybe it's not fake.
Tuesday, October 5, 2004--When Dan Rather went down for airing a document he couldn't source, he did the courageous thing: blamed someone else.

In this case, Rather and CBS loaded their corporate guilt on a guy you’ve probably never heard of before, rancher Bill Burkett of Abilene, a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the Texas Air National Guard.

CBS did a no-no -- used a document on air without fully checking out its source. No excuses. Shouldn't have done it. They got the document from Burkett.

Once CBS hung out its source and painted a target on him, Rove-ing gangs of media hit men finished him off. Burkett's an evidence "fabricator," "Bush-hater," and even, suggests William Safire in the New York Times as he fantasizes a dark left-wing conspiracy, a felon ready for hard time.

Let me tell you about this Burkett "criminal." I met him while filming for BBC's Television documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes." Better than that, I'm posting a transcript of our hour-and-a-half interview.

Burkett a ‘Bush-hater’? "George W. Bush was an excellent pilot," Burkett told me, "He had the right leadership skills, he had the 'Top Gun' approach."

But I didn't go interview Burkett to chat about our President's days when he flew high. He has an important story to tell which has not one damn thing to do with a memo by some Lt. Col. Killian. It has to do with a phone call and a shredder.

Burkett, a top advisor to Major General Daniel James at the Air Guard, was working at Camp Mabry with Major General James when a call came in from Joe Allbaugh, the Chief of Staff to then-Governor George W. Bush. Bush was about to get a political polishing up for his White House run, with a ghost-written autobiography, which would include his heroic years during the war in Vietnam. Allbaugh, according to Burkett, stated that Bush political operatives Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett would be dropping by the Air Guard offices to look at the war record and wanted to, "make sure there's nothing in there that'll embarrass the Governor."

According to Burkett, the General and his minions who work for the Governor, not the US Air Force, took this as an unsubtle hint from the boss to purge the record. Lt. Col. Burkett, both curious and disturbed by the call, wondered how his fellow comrades-in-arms would respond. His answer was in the trash-to-be-shredded bin: George Bush's military pay records. "I saw what are called LES (Leave and Earnings Statements) which are pay documents. I saw Retirement Points documents and other administrative information."

He did not see their content, only Bush's name, and therefore cannot answer the 64 million dollar question: Did those records, now "missing," indicate that our President went AWOL while others ended up on the Black Wall?

That's Burkett's story and it's in the BBC film. Watch the film, read the transcript, and judge for yourself. I think you'll find in Burkett a straight shooter, telling a piece of the larger draft-dodge story which mounting evidence corroborates.

So what about that "Killian" document? We don't have it in the BBC film - we would not use a document we cannot source. Burkett passed it on to CBS from a third party, obviously someone still in the Guard or fearful of Bush Family retribution. Now why would they imagine that?

Under pressure, Burkett gave CBS a false name to cover for the whistleblower. Burkett should not have done that. It is understandable but inexcusable. Period. Yet, that does not tell us the document was fabricated. It was the job of CBS to follow up -- they are the journalists.

And it is also the President's job. Safire in the Times, in charging that Burkett faked the document, demanded the military open a criminal investigation. Darn right they should. They haven't. Why not? Maybe they don’t want to check into this ‘fake’ document because maybe it's not fake.

An investigation should begin with questions for the President. After all, he can clear up the matter lickety-split.

"Mr. President, did you or did you not ask your commander Lt. Col. Killian how you could shirk your duty to show up?"

"Mr. President, did you or did you not refuse a direct order to take a medical exam and pee into a jar?" (The record is solid on the evidence of refusing that order, Mr. Top Gun -- you were stripped of your flight wings.)

"Mr. President, did Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes make any calls to get you out of 'Nam and into the Air Guard? Yes or no?"

See Dan, that's how it should be done. It wasn't Burkett's job to verify the evidence, it was the job of Dan and the President.

It is for the President, not Bill Burkett, to answer the question, "Did your daddy the congressman vote to send other men's sons to Vietnam while pulling the strings to keep you cozy and safe? Yes or no, Mr. President, yes or no?"


For a clip from the BBC Television investigative reports on George Bush's military career, go to http://www.gregpalast.com/bff-dvd.htm

Greg Palast's interview with Col. Burkett for BBC can be read at http://www.gregpalast.com/documents/BurkettTranscript.pdf




Copyright © 2004 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved.

Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.

This story was published on October 5, 2004.

 
Bookmark and Share
Local News & Opinion

01.26 Local Democrats Invited to Brainstorming Session on Sun., Jan. 31

Ref. : Local Newsbriefs

Travel
Books, Films, Arts & Education

02.04 'The Power of Nightmares': Underwear vs. Reason

Letters

Ref. : Letters to the editor

Open Letters:
Health & Environment

Video National Health Care Systems In Other Countries

02.09 States Launch their Own Health Care reforms

02.03 States Face Worsening Recession with Health Care Funds on the Chopping Block

01.18 Drugmaker Got Kickbacks for Nursing Home Patients

Media Watching

02.04 Err-America

02.03 The Right Gets Itself 'Wired'

Ref. : The Daily Howler

Legal Matters

01.25 Thinking About Fictions

01.24 US Democracy's End of the Road

01.22 Editorial: U.S. Supreme Court Nails Down the Coffin of Democracy

01.22 Security Fools

US Politics, Policy & Culture

02.09 Palin, Psy-Ops & 'Condescending' Libs

02.09 Growing Hunger in America

02.08 The US Government has Lost its Reason for Being

02.08 Thinking About Oracles

02.06 No Direction Home: Pakistan and the Imperial Principle

02.04 Howard Zinn and the State of the Union

02.04 The US Supreme Court: Vanguard of Friendly American Fascism?

02.04 The New War Against Money

02.04 David Brooks Goes After Greedy Geezers

02.02 Obama's Budget Ducks Pentagon Cuts

02.02 Budgets, War and Blind Ambition: The Limited Minds of the American Elite

02.01 Thinking About Definitives

02.01 Remembering Howard Zinn (1922 - 2010)

01.29 American History 101: We Are Devo

01.29 Obama's Outreach to Americans: Empty Rhetoric, Business As Usual

01.28 The Supreme Court's Partisanship

01.27 Freeze Frame: Flopsweat and Farce in the Hollow Halls of Power

01.25 Granny D on Campaign Finance Reform

01.25 S.C. Republican’s Plan: Starve the Poor So They’ll Stop “Breeding”

01.23 It's Time for Kucinich, Conyers, Feingold and Other `Progressives' in Congress to Take a Stand

01.21 Massachusetts' Message of Stupid

01.21 Terrorism Defined: Bill Clinton Lights Our Way to Truth

01.21 How Obama Lost His Way

01.21 Political Earthquake Rocks Massachusetts

01.20 Obama Cuts Deal that Will Reduce Social Security, Medicare and all Entitlements

01.20 Critical Mass: Dem Agenda Opens Right-Wing Doors

01.19 Outsourcing War: The Rise of Private Military Contractors

“High Crimes?”

01.25 The Silence and the Shield: Depraved Indifference to the Atrocities of Power

01.19 Dark as a Dungeon: A Brutal System Stripped Bare

Economics & Business Non/Mis/Malfeasance

02.07 AIG-Gate: The World's Greatest Insurance Heist

02.06 The Free Market Fetish

02.04 The Crisis is Not Over

02.03 States Face Worsening Recession with Health Care Funds on the Chopping Block

02.02 Rule by the Rich

01.29 The Battle of the Titans: JPMorgan vs. Goldman Sachs

01.27 State of the Union: Obama’s “Automatic IRA” Plan Could Make Bush’s Wildest Dreams Come True

01.26 Obama, Read Your Reagan on Capital Gains Taxation

01.24 Funding Public Health Care with a Publicly-Owned Bank: How Canada Did It

01.18 Thinking About Accelerants

International

02.08 Aafia Siddiqui: Victimized by American Injustic

02.07 Annals of Liberation: Obama Surge Driving Thousands From Their Homes

02.05 Human Rights Abuses in Israel and Occupied Palestine

02.03 Child Slavery in Haiti

01.30 Blood is His Argument: Tony Blair's Gentle Cuddling at Iraq "Inquiry"

01.28 Obama Ignores Key Afghan Warning

01.27 Haiti's Earthquake: Natural or Engineered

01.26 Helping Haiti’s Elders

01.26 Focus on Israel: Harvesting Haitian Organs

01.25 Focus on Haiti: Washington's Militarized Takeover

01.22 The Lessons of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions

01.18 Disaster Capitalism Headed to Haiti

We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
Google
This site Web

Public Service Ads:
Verifiable Voting in Maryland