Sucker story?

NYTimes trying to add to the confusion. [My comments are indicated.]

CBS has refused to say how it obtained the documents. But one person at CBS, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed a report in Newsweek that Bill Burkett, a retired National Guard officer who has charged that senior aides to then-Governor Bush had ordered Guard officials to remove damaging information from Mr. Bush's military personnel files, [ what date? How does Burkett know and can he prove it? ]had been a source of the report. This person did not know the exact role he played.

Mr. Burkett declined to return telephone calls to his home near Abilene, Tex. [Drudge is running a story that memos were faxed from a Kinkos in Abeline, Tex.] His lawyer, [why does he need a lawyer] David Van Os, on Tuesday repeatedly refused to say in a telephone interview whether the officer had played a part in supplying the disputed documents to CBS. Mr. Van Os said 'the real story is and should be, where was George Bush?' and that Mr. Burkett 'is not the proper object of attention.'

Mr. Van Os called Mr. Burkett 'a man of impeccable honesty who would not permit himself to be a party to anything fake, fraudulent or phony.' He also said, in response to questions, and stressing that he was speaking only hypothetically, 'If Bill Burkett were to later discover that something he was a party to were fake or phony, as a man of honor who lives by a code of honor of the military, he would not permit the falsity to continue.' But, the lawyer hastened to add, 'This is not intended to be any kind of specific statement.'

Asked what role Mr. Burkett had in raising questions about Mr. Bush's military service, Mr. Van Os said: 'If, hypothetically, Bill Burkett or anyone else, any other individual, had prepared or had typed on a word processor as some of the journalists are presuming, without much evidence, if someone in the year 2004 had prepared on word processor replicas of documents that they believed had existed in 1972 or 1973 - which Bill Burkett has absolutely not done'' - then, he continued, "what difference would it make?" [So now the memos are replicas? And someone BELIEVED they existed?]

Designated fall guy?