quote: Former Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, who provided CBS News with possibly fraudulent documents purporting to show that President Bush shirked his Guard duty, is looking for a lawyer to pursue a possible defamation case against the network.
Burkett is angry with CBS and anchor Dan Rather for disclosing his identity after promising him anonymity, his current attorney, Gabriel Quintanilla, said yesterday. Quintanilla said Burkett's life had become "pure hell" since Monday, when Rather disclosed on the "CBS Evening News" that Burkett was the network's confidential and "unimpeachable" source for the controversial documents.
Burkett has had little luck finding a lawyer to represent him. His first attorney, David Van Os of San Antonio, bowed out because he was involved in the initial negotiations with CBS and feels a conflict of interest. Quintanilla said he is suffering from severe back problems and cannot handle the deluge of calls and messages in an incident that, he said, has generated more conspiracy theories than the "grassy knoll" did in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
A third lawyer, Lin Wood of Atlanta, who represented former Olympic Games security guard Richard Jewell in a successful defamation suit against several news organizations, said yesterday that he had declined a request from Quintanilla to take the Burkett case. Wood pleaded "time constraints" as well as his "high regard for CBS News."
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I REALLY hope Van Os doesn't get dragged into this. He's the only Democrat running for the Supreme Court of Texas, which is currently an exclusive Republican bench. One party institutions are ALWAYS a bad idea, and the Texas bench is proof of this.
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