Okay.  So me and the weaponized nipples* are ready to add a few thoughts to Allah’s recent RatherGate observations, because I think the points he raises are both important and suggestive.

First, Allah excerpts bits from the Washington Post story that add to the “established” time line:

In mid-August, Mapes told her bosses that she had finally tracked down a source who claimed to have access to memos written in 1972 and 1973 by the late Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, Bush’s squadron commander in the Texas Air National Guard. The memos, she was told, revealed how the young pilot from a famous family had received favorable treatment, even after refusing an order to report for a physical. Rather and his producer met the source at an out-of-the-way location. . . .

During the Republican National Convention in New York, Rather got a call from Ben Barnes, a onetime Texas lieutenant governor and veteran Democrat who has known the anchor, a former Houston TV reporter, for 30 years. Barnes said he was ready to say before the cameras that he had pulled strings to get Bush a coveted slot in the Texas Guard in 1968. Mapes had long been urging Barnes to tell his story.

On Friday, Sept. 3, the day after the convention ended, Mapes hit pay dirt. She told Howard her source had given her the documents.

Extrapolating from this information, Allah writes:

Assume that the source is Burkett, which seems likely. Burkett is meeting with Mapes and Dan Rather in mid-August. But he doesn’t give them any memos at that point; that doesn’t happen until September 3rd. So what’s the meeting in mid-August all about? My guess is that Burkett told them at that point that he had “heard” that the Killian memos were floating around and that he thought he could get them copies in case they were interested. Which they were. But why on earth would Dan Rather be there in person for something like that? Burkett had already been exposed by the Boston Globe as something of a crank six months earlier. Does Rather go flying around the country to chat with every two-bit yahoo claiming to have info on Bush? Someone awfully credible, much more so than Wild Bill, must have vouched for the info to get Rather down there for a face-to-face.

Now, about that call during the RNC. Here’s a post I wrote on the morning of September 2nd, the day of Bush’s acceptance speech. Note the first paragraph. Right around the time Dubya’s numbers are starting to climb, Rather’s on the phone with Kerry fundraiser Ben Barnes, who’s telling him he’s finally ready to talk. And then, the very night of Bush’s acceptance speech (recall the Sept. 2nd timestamp on the fax Emily Will saw), whaddaya know—suddenly CBS has the documents. An amazing coincidence. Amazing enough that if the shoe were on the other foot, Josh Marshall would be unconscious on the floor beside his computer right now, a team of paramedics furiously pumping his chest to restart his heart.

(Yes.  And once revived, he’d immediately demand “some colored Sharpies, a large piece of poster board, and a bottled water, two limes.” But I digress.)

Now. What to make of these new revelations and of Allah’s suppositions? 

Well, let’s say Allah’s suspicions are correct, and that Rather is unlikely to fly to Texas on the say-so of a known crank like Burkett.  It follows, then, that somebody Rather trusts is vouching for Burkett, or else (and here’s the twist) Rather and Mapes aren’t meeting with Burkett at all in mid August, but are instead meeting with an intermediary, someone they do trust.  But who?

Enter Salon.com.  Yes, that Salon.com—which on September 1 publishes an article in which the following information appears:

Sources say [Ben] Barnes has already sat down for a “60 Minutes” interview that will air next week. A “60 Minutes” spokesperson declined to comment, saying the program does not discuss reports that are in progress.

Now Allah, remember, has speculated that “right around the time Dubya’s numbers are starting to climb, Rather’s on the phone with Kerry fundraiser Ben Barnes, who’s telling him he’s finally ready to talk.” But as the Salon article makes clear, Rather has in fact already interviewed Barnes in advance of Bush’s convention bounce, in a piece that will become a preamble to Rather’s TxANG document exclusive.  The WaPo gives the date of the Barnes interview as September 7. 

Which raises the question:  why did CBS present the WaPo with a misleading time line? 

Well, suppose the documents’ physical source (the forger) is indeed Burkett, but that CBS’s source—the person who initially alerted CBS to the availability of the documents to begin with—is Barnes himself. Rather and Mapes are much more likely to fly to Texas to meet with Barnes than with Burkett, and while there, they could’ve planned the Barnes interview, which they would later air as a sort of choreographed introduction to the document story.  For his part, Barnes tells CBS he can get them the documents, but that it will take him a couple of weeks.

But if Barnes is the actual CBS source, why would Rather be in Texas talking to Burkett now? 

Well, try this on for size:  CBS airs the story, the documents are revealed as forgeries, and CBS suddenly realizes it has used as its “unimpeachable source” Ben Barnes, a partisan Democrat with ties to the Texas contingent of the Kerry campaign.  So what to do? 

One possibility is that CBS contacts Barnes, who confirms what the internet has already been speculating—that the documents do in fact come from Bill Burkett.  Rather and Mapes, embarrassed and in a tough spot, reason that because Burkett is the actual source of the forgeries, he’s the one to be sacrificed on the alter of their credibility.  And as an added benefit, Burkett—unlike Barnes—is not connected to the Kerry campaign.  So they travel to Texas to confront him.

Will Burkett admit to the forgeries?  Probably not.  So again, why is Rather interviewing him?

Well, think back to what Burkett was saying on those chatboards in August.  (Paraphrasing) “”Many of us have risked everything on this election.” If it comes out that Ben Barnes and an organized wing of Kerry’s Texas Democratic contingent passed these documents, Kerry is sunk.  Burkett must know this.

So, is it possible Burkett may take one for the team?  Or will a Burkett denial work just as well, keeping the focus on him and away from other actors, if in fact there are any?  Is Barnes the CBS source?  Can we find anything to connect Barnes to Burkett…? 

And is any of this worth pursuing anyway?  Time will tell, I suppose.  But for what it’s worth, my nipples are telling me to keep going.  The selfish little flesh rivets.

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see also:  Tim Blair; Betsy of Betsy’s Page

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update:  CBS will admit that were duped.  The geniuses. 

Allah has this to say:

I have to let this simmer. But look. If you believe WaPo’s article from earlier today, Mapes was investigating this story since mid-August; she finagled a sit-down meeting at that time between herself, the source, and Dan Rather; she later expressed absolute confidence in the source and how he had come by the documents. All that being so, even if you assume the worst anti-Bush gullibility on the part of Mapes and Rather, is it really likely that a single known crackpot like Burkett could have perpetrated a giant hoax upon the entire CBS News division using ridiculously amateurish forgeries? And that the whole thing would suddenly unravel neatly in an on-camera interview?

There’s no way.

Exactly. Too convenient.  This goes deeper.  Though probably not this deep.

More here. And here.

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update 2:  In a letter to the American Spectator, Bill Burkett’s lawyer, David Van Os, suggests that Burkett will not take one for the team:

Based upon my personal knowledge of Bill Burkett’s character from knowing him and knowing of his reputation among his peers, I will state unequivocally that Bill Burkett did not falsify or create the “CBS documents.” I do not assume that anyone falsified or created those documents until more is known, but if anyone did, it was not Bill Burkett. I will stake my reputation and good name on this certainty. Further from my knowledge of Bill Burkett’s character and integrity, I will state unequivocally that if, hypothetically speaking, Bill Burkett handled documents that were recent creations rather than true copies of originals, he would have done so only because he had reason to believe they were true copies rather than recent creations.

Burkett.  Van Os.  Barnes…

Is there a connection?

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update 4:  The monkey pronounces judgment.

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update 5:  Several great points raised in the comments and through email so far, not the least of which is the possibility that the WaPo made a “1″/”7″ transcription error on the September date of the Barnes interview. This is plausible—Sept 1 was the fourth day of the Republican convention—but the Salon story, dated Sept 1, suggest the interview has taken place in August.  And an “August”/”September” seems less likely.

A second point reintroduces Max Cleland into the mix. On August 25, Cleland, you’ll remember, engaged in a tawdry piece of street theater in Crawford TX as he (along with Jim Rasmussen) attempted to deliver a cease and desist order to the President regarding the SwiftVet ads.  And as this WaPo article makes clear, Cleland had already spoken to Burkett by this time, though Burkett insists he’s still getting the run around from the DNC.  Question:  Did Cleland contact (or was he contacted by) anyone while in Texas whom he may have viewed as being more credible?  Because remember, the DNC has its “Fortunate Son” bit all ready for the Rather story, and it is shortly after Cleland’s visit to Crawford, with the Republican convention interceding, that the DNC begins raising the AWOL story in earnest.  I’m skeptical that Cleland would take the word of Burkett, who has already been discredited by The Boston Globe.

In an Aug. 21 posting, Burkett referred to a conversation with former senator Max Cleland (D-Ga.) about the need to counteract Republican tactics: “I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. He said counterattack. So I gave them the information to do it with. But none of them have called me back.”

Cleland confirmed that he had a two- or three-minute conversation by cell phone with a Texan named Burkett in mid-August while he was on a car ride. He remembers Burkett saying that he had “valuable” information about Bush, and asking what he should [do] with it. “I told him to contact the [Kerry] campaign,” Cleland said. “You get this information tens of times a day, and you don’t know if it is legit or not.”

More speculation on Cleland’s role here.

And one more thought:  If Barnes is the point man (a big if), is it possible that during their late August interview, he steers Rather toward Cleland…?