Text 2724, 123 rader
Skriven 2004-09-30 07:57:00 av FRANK SCHEIDT (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av JEFF BINKLEY
Ärende: CBS
===========
-=> Quoting Jeff Binkley to All <=-

 JB> More Than Scandal, CBS Saga May Indicate Crime 
 JB> Thursday, September 30, 2004
 JB> By Matt Hayes 

 JB> As any police officer or prosecutor will tell you, there is a
 JB> remarkable  consistency in the statements made by people pulled over by
 JB> police while  driving a stolen vehicle.  

 JB> "I didn't know it was stolen. I just bought it from this guy I met,"
 JB> the  driver will say. When pressed for details, the driver will usually
 JB> insist that he bought the nearly new vehicle for about $1000, almost 
 JB> always from an unknown individual or person whose name doesn't check 
 JB> out, customarily at about 4:00 a.m., on a street whose name he can't 
 JB> recall. 

 JB> Prosecutors use these statements as evidence of a consciousness of 
 JB> guilt. That, combined with possession of the stolen vehicle, is enough
 JB> to secure a criminal conviction.

 JB> Much has been written about CBS' concession that it can no longer
 JB> vouch  for the authenticity of the documents that served as the
 JB> foundation of  its Bush National Guard story. But another story is
 JB> developing, one that  could possibly lead someone not just to public
 JB> humiliation, but to a  jail cell.

 JB> The watershed event for CBS was Dan Rather's (search) weekend meeting 
 JB> with retired National Guardsman Bill Burkett (search). During the 
 JB> meeting, Burkett said something that dislodged CBS from its death grip
 JB> on the assertion that the story was true. CBS' about-face suggests
 JB> that  whatever Burkett conveyed to Rather that weekend was something
 JB> wholly  different from whatever he had originally presented to the
 JB> network as a  rational and consistent explanation of the memos' origin.
 JB> This  "something" suggested to the network that the creation of the
 JB> memos  might actually constitute a crime. 

 JB> In Texas, the state in which Burkett concedes the false National Guard
 JB> memos originated, it is a felony to make or present two or more 
 JB> documents with knowledge of their falsity and with intent that they be
 JB> taken as a genuine governmental record. Under the U.S. Code, use of an
 JB> interstate telephone wire, such as the one used to transmit an image
 JB> of  the forged documents from Texas to CBS headquarters, triggers
 JB> federal  jurisdiction.

 JB> Burkett's recent statements are just as amusing as those given by 
 JB> drivers of stolen vehicles, and anyone hearing them could be forgiven 
 JB> for thinking that there really is no source for the memos other than 
 JB> Burkett. (His National Guard background certainly gives him the 
 JB> knowledge to write a memo that might not look convincing, but at least
 JB> contains the jargon to sound convincing.)

 JB> We will probably never know just what Burkett confessed to Rather that
 JB> weekend, but he said enough for CBS to almost immediately state that
 JB> it  had been "misled" as to the as original source of the documents.
 JB> Though  we don't know the identity of that source, the vast majority of
 JB> experts  agree that it was someone who did his or her typing at a
 JB> personal  computer loaded with Microsoft Word. 

 JB> Burkett now asks us to understand that if CBS was misled, it was
 JB> because  he was only trying to protect someone named "Lucy Ramirez," an
 JB> individual who Burkett now alleges provided him with the documents. To
 JB> date, no media organization, including USA Today and CBS (which now
 JB> has  a huge incentive to track down and verify everything Burkett has
 JB> ever  said) has been able to locate such a person. 

 JB> Burkett now insists that he presented the documents to CBS with the 
 JB> proviso that CBS verify them, but there is plenty of evidence that
 JB> this  conversation never took place, and that Burkett in fact presented
 JB> them  as genuine National Guard (search) documents. Indeed, CBS has
 JB> insisted  that prior to broadcast, it was satisfied after speaking with
 JB> Burkett —  whom they dubbed an "unimpeachable source" — that the two
 JB> memos were  real. 

 JB> It defies logic that Burkett would first lie to CBS about the
 JB> documents'  source in an effort to foil verification (as he now
 JB> suddenly says he  did), and then tell CBS that the documents required
 JB> verification. But if  this is in fact the case, Burkett not only
 JB> frustrated CBS' verification  efforts, but necessarily closed his eyes
 JB> to what otherwise would have  been obvious to him: that the documents
 JB> were fakes. That alone would  probably be enough to satisfy a jury that
 JB> Burkett knew the documents  were fake when he presented them to CBS,
 JB> which would result in a  criminal conviction in a Texas court. 

 JB> CBS has cause for concern, too. The documents were not just forged;
 JB> they  were obviously forged to the generation over age 40, which has
 JB> used both  a typewriter and a computer to write; CBS did not have to be
 JB> misled  about the source of the documents to be tipped that the
 JB> documents were  not real. While Burkett might have been willfully blind
 JB> to things that  would indicate that the memos were fake, there is
 JB> mounting evidence that  even CBS' experts told producers of 60 Minutes
 JB> II that they could not  verify that the documents were real. The story
 JB> was aired – or in the  terms of the Texas forgery statute, "presented"
 JB> — in spite of this. 

 JB> If Lucy Ramirez (search) is real, then Bill Burkett and CBS should
 JB> find  her as soon as possible. Burkett in particular is mired in
 JB> evidence that  he created the two memos claiming President Bush shirked
 JB> his National  Guard service, and CBS is faced with deliberately
 JB> ignoring the many  facts, not to mention expert opinions, that would
 JB> have told a more  vigilant organization that the memos were fabricated.

 JB> Until Lucy Ramirez is found, Bill Burkett is driving around in that 
 JB> brand new car at 4:00 a.m., waiting to be pulled over.      

 JB> Matt Hayes began practicing immigration law shortly after graduating 
 JB> from Pace University School of Law in 1994, representing new
 JB> immigrants  in civil and criminal matters. He is the author of The New
 JB> Immigration  Law and Practice, to be published in October.

I just hope this investigation -- if that's actually going on -- 
will not simply fade away.  The criminal(s) involved in this 
law-breaking need(s) to be found and prosecuted.  As for Dan Rather, 
I think he probably just got caught up in his hatred for the 
Republican Party and is now like a fish in a net, flopping 
around, trying desperately to get out.  Most fish don't succeed 
-- though some do.

... "To boldy back away from where no one has gone before ... "

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