Ratherbiased.com has fingered tin-foil hat Bush hater Bill Burkett as the source of the forged documents:

Bill Burkett, the disgruntled former National Guardsman widely believed to be the source of the disputed documents shown last week on ’60 Minutes,’ has been colluding with CBS News for quite some time. RatherBiased.com can report that Burkett has been giving documents to Dan Rather and his colleagues. These documents have been used in CBS’s reporting.

On February 12, 2004, Dan Rather reported that there was “more election-year squabbling today over President Bush’s National Guard service record during the Vietnam War.”

Correspondent John Roberts reported CBS had obtained a document along with the writer of an anti-Bush book.

“In a six-year-old letter to Texas lawmakers, obtained by CBS News and in the new book Bush’s War for Reelection, former Guard Officer Bill Burkett claims that in 1997, Guard commanders purged Mr. Bush’s records to ‘make sure nothing will embarrass the governor during his re-election campaign or if he runs for president.'”

The letter was given to CBS and author Jim Moore, who also wrote Bush’s Brain.

Burkett, who lives in central Texas near Abilene, believes that Bush is personally responsible for denying him National Guard medical benefits, has been making a number of charges against Bush beginning during his time as governor of Texas. The former guardsman has been trying to get news organizations to report on his complaints but most have been loathe to relay his charges because they are denied by a number of people, including his friends.

Most likely, Burkett’s liaison at the network was Dallas-based CBS producer Mary Mapes who has been pursuing allegations that President Bush evaded his military obligations for five years according to network officials.