Burkett blames CBS News, Dubya, and the blogosphere

According to CNN, based on its email interview with CBS News' controversial source Bill Burkett, Mr. Burkett blames Dubya for the blogospheric storm over Ra^thergate:

Burkett also accused the White House of using the blog community to launch a "kill the messenger campaign" against him after the documents were made public.

Nor, in Mr. Burkett's view, did CBS News stonewall and bloviate hard enough during the storm:

"The coordinated attacks against the documents, then against me, which CBS did nothing to deflect or defend, and then against Dan Rather and CBS producer Mary Mapes have not been against the validity of the documents, but rather as an attack against anything being considered at all," he said.

But CBS News — truthseekers that they are — did, apparently, actively encourage Mr. Burkett to remain silent and not "out" himself as their source prior to last weekend:

[Burkett's wife,] Nicki Burkett said CBS News "asked us not to respond publicly in our own defense from the time we turned over the documents" until last Saturday, when a network vice president informed them that CBS no longer had any obligation to them.

Does Burkett have a sense of humor?

Burkett also said "the central part of my agreement with CBS was that they use their massive and superlative abilities to authenticate and verify the documents prior to broadcast in order that I and my source not have to be identified."

"CBS came to me, I did not go to them," he said. "It was in no interest of mine to be involved with this. Certainly as a source, I demanded confidentiality both for myself and my source."

Meanwhile, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Jack Douglas, in an article distributed by Knight-Ridder, reports from his own interview with Mr. Burkett that he claims not only that CBS News put the Kerry campaign into contact with him, but that Kerry campaign official Joe Lockhart vigorously sought copies of the documents  [update: the strike-throughs above and below are based on the Star-Telegram having issued a correction; see below — Beldar]:

He said, however, that during the meeting in which he gave the memos 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."

In case you've forgotten, on Monday Mr. Lockhart admitted to having called Mr. Burkett at the suggestion of CBS News producer Mary Mapes, but told a different story than Mr. Burkett's telling now:

Earlier, Lockhart said he thanked Burkett for his advice after a three- to four-minute call, and that he does not recall talking to Burkett about Bush's Guard records. "It's baseless to say the Kerry campaign had anything to do with this," he said.

Later, Lockhart said he was sure he had not talked to Burkett about the Guard documents.

And according to the what he told the Star-Telegram's Douglas, Mr. Burkett thinks CBS News is setting him up to be the "fall guy" through artful editing:

Burkett said he agreed to a taped interview with Rather on Monday as suspicion about the memos mounted, putting the network's reputation at stake. He said key portions of the interview were never aired.

"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."

He added, "By his action and inaction, Dan Rather ruined my reputation in front of 70 million people."

I'm guessing that various dictionaries are competing vigorously over the right to publish Mr. Burkett's picture next to their next editions' entries for the term "loose cannon."  But for tonight, I have nothing else to say on the subject — check with me tomorrow, after I've finished my regular morning videoconference with Karl Rove and gotten my instructions on how to play this.

Update (Fri Sep 24 @5:08pm): The strike-throughs above are based upon the Star-Telegram having today issued a correction to its original story that reads:

This article has been corrected from the version published in the newspaper and online Friday morning to reflect that Bill Burkett was referring to conversations with CBS when he said, "They tried to convince me as to why I should give them the documents." The earlier version incorrectly reported that he had discussed the documents with Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign.

I've also changed the original title of this post to remove the ending, "— and disputes Lockhart."