Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

Did Kerry lie about his medals? Who cares.

"OK, George, you want to criticize my military service? Then stop hiding behind Big Boy Hughes' sizable skirts and do it yourself. Let's see you fight your own battle just once, instead of letting a girl do it for you."

Who is Tommy Burkett?

New FBI Probe has Links with Foster Case
Christopher Ruddy
December 18, 1994

The FBI is stepping up a civil rights investigation into the death of a young Virginia man whose case has been linked with the death of Vincent W. Foster Jr., the deputy White House Counsel who died of a supposed suicide.
Tommy Burkett, 21, who attended Marymount College in Virginia, was found dead in a bedroom of his parents' Herndon, Va., home three years ago. The death was ruled a suicide at the time, but that ruling may be challenged as a result of an FBI investigation.

A Washington, D.C., law-enforcement official indicated widespread skepticism among FBI officials as to the Foster findings. The official suggested the Burkett case may be a vital first step toward reopening the Foster case.

The cases have parallels. Both men died of gunshot wounds through the mouth. Perhaps more significantly, in both death investigations pathologist James Beyer was a key figure. Dr. Beyer, 76, is the longtime deputy chief medical examiner for northern Virginia. It was he who conducted the autopsy of Vincent Foster's body after it was found in Arlington's Fort Marcy Park on July 20, 1993.

A number of forensic experts have taken exception to the findings in the Foster case; similar questions have been raised concerning Beyer's findings in the Burkett case. Such doubts have prompted the elder Burketts to publish their own newsletter. A recent issue contained an article titled ``Dr. Beyer's Contradictory and Deceptive Testimony in the Vincent Foster Case and in the Tommy Burkett Case.''

In a diagram therein, the Burketts note that Beyer ruled their son's death consistent with suicide. They point out, however, that the ruling of suicide in the Foster case relied on two factors totally absent in the case of their son's similar death. During the Senate hearings probing the Foster death, the Burketts write, Beyer said key factors pointing to suicide were powder burns in the mouth and an absence of trauma to the jaw.

But according to a second autopsy on Tommy Burkett's body, neither of these factors was present: no such powder burns were found in the mouth of their son, and his jaw was broken.

The Burketts' dissatisfaction with Beyer's findings had led to their hiring of an outside pathologist, Dr. Erik Mitchell, to perform the second autopsy. Mitchell, former chief medical examiner of Syracuse, N.Y., noted in his own autopsy report that the young man's lungs have never been dissected, contradicting a notation of Beyer's that the procedure had been performed.

Mitchell also confirmed the parent's observations that there was damage to the body other than that normally associated with self-inflicted gunshots to the mouth. When the senior Burkett found his son's body, he saw a ``disfigured and bloody'' ear, even though the bullet exited from the back of the head. He also saw that the jaw was ``obviously broken.''

This led the parents to believe their son had been beaten before the fatal shot, and they were incredulous that Beyer's report did not contain this information. Dr. Beyer, in a telephone interview, stated: ``The only comment I have is that the autopsy findings in the Burkett case was a perforated gunshot wound to the head.

``It still stands that way,'' he added, when asked about the injuries noted on the second autopsy report. ``If that's what they say, it's their findings, not mine.''

The FBI's involvement in the case is not focused on the cause of death per se but, rather, on the civil rights aspect. ``We opened the [Burkett] case at the directive of the Department of Justice,'' said Susan Lloyd, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Metropolitan D.C. field office. She said the FBI is trying to determine ``whether or not Tommy Burkett's civil rights were violated.''

Lloyd noted, however, that civil rights investigations and homicide investigations can ``overlap,'' and said the FBI is committed to determining whether ``all proper investigative techniques were accorded to the death.''

The FBI's involvement in the case may represent an abrupt turn of events. Robert M. Bryant, special agent in charge of the Metropolitan D.C. office, took the highly unusual step of distancing the agency from the matter in a letter published in the Chantilly (Va.) Times in October 1993, stating: ``The FBI is not, and has never been, involved in any review of this matter ...'' - a premise contradicted by the Burketts, who say FBI agents met with them in early fall 1993.

According to the Burketts, agents met with them on several occasions after that, and in the past two months the FBI has significantly widened its probe. Just over a week ago, FBI agents spent several hours reviewing the scene of their son's death.

The Burketts - distressed that the Fairfax police had spent only a half-hour on the scene without taking fingerprints or even retrieving the fatal bullet from a wall - have kept the bedroom just as it was at the time of death, with blood splatters and stains intact.

The Burketts' allegations have been the subject of a number of news articles, and the couple has appeared on the television series ``Unsolved Mysteries.'' They charge that Fairfax County officials as well as Beyer engaged in a cover-up of the circumstances of their son's death. An especially serious charge they make is that records of two ``911'' calls their son made on the day of his death were tampered with or destroyed.

Such charges were disputed on ``Unsolved Mysteries'' by Maj. Arthur Mabry, a spokesman for the Fairfax County police. He maintained that ``the gun was processed, an autopsy was conducted, photos were taken, a thorough and acceptable crime scene [investigation] was conducted.''

Warren Carmichael, director of public information for the Fairfax County police, scoffed at the notion that the police and the medical examiner engaged in a cover-up. He said police conducted ``a totally appropriate investigation,'' adding that the medical examiner came to similar findings ``totally independent of the police.'' Carmichael said police have no plans to reopen the Burkett case, but the door is still open ``if new information is provided.''

In the Foster case, Beyer's findings were supported by a four-member independent pathology team working for special prosecutor Robert Fiske. The team concluded that, based on Beyer's notations, ``there was no other trauma identified that would suggest a circumstance other than suicide.''

The Burketts remain skeptical about Beyer's findings in both cases, pointing to the pathologist's record in still another supposed suicide case in the state, that of Timothy Easley in 1989. According to the medical examiner's certificate, which was based on Beyer's autopsy report, the 21-year-old Easley had ``stabbed self in chest.''

His family, however, had noted a cut on their son's hand as his body lay in wake. Another pathologist, Dr. Harry Bonnell, chief deputy medical examiner for San Diego, Calif., described the cut at the time as a ``classical defense wound suffered while trying to avoid a knife.'' In 1993, four years after Beyer's autopsy report, Easley's girlfriend admitted that she killed the youth.

As for the Fiske report, its conclusions continue to disturb officials of the FBI. They are bothered by such things as the fact that Fiske, for inexplicable reasons, did not avail himself of a grand jury, nor did he take the simple expedient of putting witnesses under oath. They also cannot understand why, given all the inconsistencies surrounding Foster's death, Fiske refused to exhume the body and put such doubts to rest.

The new independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, is reviewing Fiske's investigation of the Foster matter.

He's no Churchill
The president of Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., said in a campus-wide email he was "surprised and disappointed" after a speech by Vice President Dick Cheney, a marquee event that should have been a moment of pride for the school, which in 1946 was the site of Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech. The AP reports that Westminster had been told the vice president would give a "major foreign policy address" in the school gym. Instead, Cheney went into partisan attack dog mode, embarrassing the college president.

"Westminster College's president said Monday he was so 'surprised and disappointed' by Vice President Dick Cheney's attacks on John Kerry during a speech that he is inviting the Democrat to visit for a reply. Fletcher Lamkin told The Associated Press that Cheney's staff approached him last week about using Westminster as the backdrop "for a major foreign policy address. Nothing was said about a stump speech." In a campus-wide e-mail after the speech, Lamkin said: 'I must admit that I was surprised and disappointed that Mr. Cheney chose to step off the high ground and resort to Kerry-bashing for a large portion of his speech.'"

You're telling us that the reason things are so bad is that they are so good, and they will get better as soon as they get worse?"

"You got it."