Peeling the Onion
In today's Washington Post comes this interesting story (emphases mine):

The former Texas National Guard officer suspected of providing CBS News with possibly forged records on President Bush's military service called on Democratic activists to wage "war" against Republican "dirty tricks" in a series of Internet postings in which he also used phrases similar to several employed in the disputed documents.

[...]

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 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."

Sounds to me like the stink is wafting Kerry's way. There's absolutely no reason to doubt that Rather colluded with his friends in the Kerry campaign to "counterattack." Just think about it. Roll it around on your tongue.

And by way of the Drudge Report, here's more from the Associated Press:

The retired Guard official, Bill Burkett, said in an Aug. 21 e-mail to a list of Texas Democrats that after getting through "seven layers of bureaucratic kids" in the Democrat's campaign, he talked with former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland about information that would counter criticism of Kerry's Vietnam War service.

Sounds like Burkett went to considerable trouble to get in touch with Cleland. And someone must have thought he was worth listening to because he managed to get in touch with Kerry's favorite mascot on his cell phone.

There's tons more on this, comrades. Just try some of the links in my blogroll. Try this post from Allah, for starters:

And you had better believe that if the political orientations in this case were reversed, if it turned out that Bill Burkett had spoken to Trent Lott, say, and been told to "counterattack" by forwarding his information to the Bush campaign, Josh Marshall would be on a gurney somewhere getting zapped with those metal paddles to restart his fucking heart.

True dat.