BuckHead Uncovered!

[Nbadan]

WASHINGTON — It was the first public allegation that CBS News used forged memos in its report questioning President Bush's National Guard service — a highly technical explanation posted within hours of airtime citing proportional spacing and font styles.

But it did not come from an expert in typography or typewriter history as some first thought. Instead, it was the work of Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes who helped draft the pe ion urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Times has found.

The iden y of "Buckhead," a blogger known previously only by his screen name on the site freerepublic.com and lifted to folk hero status in the conservative blogosphere since last week's posting, is likely to fuel speculation among Democrats that the efforts to discredit the CBS memos were engineered by Republicans eager to undermine reports that Bush received preferential treatment in the National Guard more than 30 years ago.

Republican officials have denied any involvement among those debunking the CBS story.

LA Times

Why does this whole thing have Karl Rove written all over it?

[Yonivore]

Guess What. The memos are still forged. And, no, I don't think it has Rove written all over it.

As I pointed out in a thread just a minute ago, Burkett contacted Senior Kerry officials on August 20th and Mapes, who claimed to have been investigating the TANG "scandal" for 5 years, said the story heated back up in mid to late August.

I'm betting it's no coincidence. Burkett call Kerry (campaign) and Kerry (campaign) calls Mapes...and points her to Burkett.

It would certainly explain why CBS and Partisan Dan Ratherbiased are stonewalling.

[Nbadan]

More on Buckhead...

By his own public writings, we know Mr. MacDougald (Buckhead) is in contact with his high school classmate Stuart Bowen. Bowen is a lawyer and former Air Force intelligence guy who's been with Bush since at least his term as governor.

Bowen has an air of shadiness about him. He was part of the Florida team and according to Salon some internal Gore strategy do ents passed through his hands during the recount. Then he took a job as White House Counsel specializing in government job appointments. Then he went to work as a lobbyist for Patton Boggs, representing a company called URS Corp, a Halliburton-like contractor fishing for jobs in Iraq. Bowen was then appointed to the theoretically nonpartisan job of Inspector General for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He slapped Kellog Brown and Root on the hand for losing $18 million worth of equipment while the report on that missing $700 million is... forthcoming, I guess.

Bowen wasn't named in the same breath as Karl Rove, but he was within two paragraphs on the thank you list in a speech delivered by President Bush in Texas.

One of the directors of URS Corp, which Bowen represented, is a guy named H. Jesse Arnelle, who is also an of-counsel attorney at Mr. MacDougald's (Buckhead's) firm.

I think that ties Buckhead to the Bush administration both personally and professionally.

Beyond that, we know that MacDougald drafted an amicus brief in favor of disbarring Bill Clinton for Southeastern Legal Foundation, which should be pretty easy to tie to Karl Rove's machinations, or at least to Richard Mellon Scaife.

And, Harry MacDougald and his brother (I think) sit on the Board of Advisors of the Atlanta Lawyers Chaper of The Federalist Society. Famous members of the Federalist Society include Solicitor General and Clinton-hunter Ted Olson, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Interior carpenter ant Gale Norton, and a number of members of the White House Counsel's office--where our friend Stuart Bowen worked.

And of course he's defended the Free Republic itself.

What does all this mean? Judging by his writing, MacDougald is a typical frothing Freeper of the rare smart subset with ties to the comparatively small universe of favor-owed Republican lawyers. There aren't more than a couple of thousand people like this, so tying him to just about anyone inside the Bush Administration is two or three degrees of separation, tops.

Doesn't mean he was fed do ents or anything in advance, though. Just looks a little fishy. And fishy is likely all we're gonna get, 'cause if they're really up to something, we'll never get them to talk.

DU Discuss

[Nbadan]

Beyond that, we know that MacDougald drafted an amicus brief in favor of disbarring Bill Clinton for Southeastern Legal Foundation, which should be pretty easy to tie to Karl Rove's machinations, or at least to Richard Mellon Scaife.

Richard Mellon Scaife is regarded as the man behind the 10-year Clinton Smear Campaign and also the man behind the Swifties.

The same folks responsible for the ten-year campaign to smear and destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton -- a campaign brilliantly detailed in Joe Conason's and Gene Lyons' book The Hunting of the President, currently available in hardcover and soon to be released in paperback form -- are now down in Florida working on George W. Bush's behalf.

Remember that the Governors Bush and Karl Rove all knew and admired Lee A er, the man who first set in motion the never-ending series of blatant smears against the Clintons. One cannot separate the vast right-wing conspiracy from the rest of the Republican Party.

This was brought home with force to me Sunday, upon the receipt of this Landmark Legal Foundation press release ... This is laughable on its face, but Landmark knows that by putting it into a spiffed-up format and couched in all manner of ten-dollar pseudo-legalese, they can impress the rubes who pony up their donations. And it makes Papa Scaife happy and keeps him signing those checks.

Do note, dear reader, that it is Landmark and not the Southeastern Legal Foundation entering into the fray. The SLF, thanks to founder Matt Glavin's personal peccadilloes, is a tad too tainted at the moment for the VRWC to use, or else it would not only be issuing bogus press releases, but also rushing to the 11th circuit. Instead, we have some bogus right-to-life group making the filings before the 11th Federal Circuit's judges in Atlanta.

American Politics

This is interesting in that it suggests the Southeastern Legal Foundation had a long-time reputation as being a set of smearmasters for the VRWC. But my eye was really caught by that line about "founder Matt Glavin's personal peccadilloes," and I just had to know more. So I looked further and came up with this:

Head of Major Right Wing Anti-Clinton Legal "Foundation" Arrested on Indecency Charges.
04-Oct-00

Matthew Glavin, president and CEO of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, has been charged with public indecency in a National Park. The Southeastern Legal Foundation has been virulently anti-Clinton. The "Foundation" is behind the effort to disbar Clinton and files frivolous lawsuits aimed at discrediting the President. More significantly, the Southeastern Legal Foundation has been at the forefront of right wing groups attacking Clinton as indecent and immoral. Glavin stands accused of fondling himself and a police officer in the Chattahoochie National River Park, just east of Atlanta. Because his indecent behavior occurred in a National Park, he will be tried in a Federal Court.

Democrats.com

[Nbadan]

More on Southeastern Legal Foundation head Richard Mellon Scaife

In 1998, TIME magazine linked the group to the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that First Lady Hilary Rodham Clinton alleged was out to get her husband. Last year, Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell compared the group to the Ku Klux Klan and called it a "right-wing attack dog." The group is suing the city over an affirmative action program. Campbell's office did not return telephone calls from CNN.com on Tuesday.

University of Arkansas law professor John DiPippa, who has emerged as a leading critic of the recommendation to disbar the president, said he is su ious of the Southeastern Legal Foundation. Noting that the group receives funding from Clinton basher Richard Scaife, a Pennsylvania billionaire who is said to fund causes designed to topple the president, DiPippa said, "I think any of the Scaife-funded operations have one goal and that is to bring down the president."

Kendall, Clinton's attorney, has publicly lambasted the group for receiving money from Scaife. He also accused the group of maintaining ties to independent counsel Kenneth Starr, whose Whitewater investigation included the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky probes, leading to Clinton's impeachment in the House and subsequent acquittal in the Senate.

CNN

and...

Scaife's ideas and money can reach into the realm of the obsessive, however. His fixation with the suicide of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster in Fort Marcy park just outside Washington three years ago is legendary. Scaife, apparently convinced there was more to it, reportedly opened a web site on the Internet to air any and all conspiracy theories about Foster. More recently, according to reports in the Washington Post, Scaife was one of the financiers behind the publication of the book, Unlimited Access. This largely unsubstantiated smear book accused Bill Clinton of having an ongoing liaison at a downtown Washington hotel. It's author, ex-FBI agent Gary Aldrich, a onetime hold over at the White House in security screening from the Bush administration, was appalled that women in the Clinton White House wore black and that a number of staffers did not have model-perfect bodies. The Wall Street Journal ran excerpts of the book on its editorial page.

Aldrich later admitted that the source for his allegations against Clinton was David Brock, editor of the American Spectator. The Spectator, a far-right magazine, has long been financed by Scaife Foundation money. In his book Aldrich thanks the Southeastern Legal Foundation, an Atlanta right think tank also supported with Scaife Foundation money, for providing help for his efforts. Southeastern Legal Foundation, it so happens, is run by Matt Glavin, a friend of Newt Gingrich from his days when he headed the Georgia Public Policy Foundation where his "dream" was to have the Georgia legislature fund school vouchers.

The Populist

[Yonivore]

And Now, Max Cleland admits he had a conversation with Burkett.

I'm betting the cards are about to fall...

[Nbadan]

Where is the outcry for an investigation into Buckhead and his association with Karl Rove, Richard Mellon Scaife, and the RNC in the Rather do ent scandal?

[Tommy Duncan]

I am shocked that a Republican would question the memos' authenticity.

[Yonivore]

"Where is the outcry for an investigation into Buckhead and his association with Karl Rove, Richard Mellon Scaife, and the RNC in the Rather do ent scandal?"

Well, since Burkett has admitted to the ruse, and since we have Joe Lockhart and Max Cleland admitting to the trilateral coordination between the Kerry campaign - See BS - and Burkett, I'd say Buckhead's role in this is irrelevant.

[Tommy Duncan]

So we have a major "news" operation putting the man in possession of faked do ents in contact with the Kerry campaign. That's swell. I thought it was Fox News who was supposed to do that kind of stuff. At least that was what some of the forum nutjobs would have had you believe.

I wonder how high up this will lead. We already have Lockhart and Cleland in contact with Burkett.

Funny, but I don't recall danny boy having any problems with Ben Barnes, major Kerry fundraiser, coming forward with a changed and unconfirmable story less than two months before the election attacking Bush.