Video of the 2004 stage production, and a tribute to Dan Rather -- and Bill Burkett.

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The emails were not enough.  Though the address list was growing into the thousands, the public dialogue lacked this kind of essential awareness.

So with the help of a witty graphic artist. . .

. . . and the theatrical guidance of the much-honored Utah Theatre actor and director Tony Larimer, and a script that was fresh off my printer -- and no budget -- I went onstage at the beautiful new Salt Lake City downtown library on October 14th, 2004.

Know Bush: Launching Facts that Shock and Awe, a One Person Patriot Act -- THE VIDEO.

It wasn’t about Bush-bashing or even Republican versus Democrat. American voters simply did not know the degree to which the media business, merged and bought out into but a few magnates, had strangled investigative journalism, even where it had once reigned most proudly.

CBS Anchor Dan Rather knew. On May 16, 2002, he told BBC NEWSNIGHT’s Madeleine Holt:

It's an obscene comparison but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tyres around people's necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced here, you will have a flaming tyre of lack of patriotism put around your neck. It's that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore-in on the tough questions so often. Again, I'm humbled to say I do not except myself from this criticism.

[Note: This is the same BBC program where the great American investigative journalist Greg Palast, one of my core inspirations, had to go – outside the U.S. – to be heard.]

And when Rather tried to rise to the strength he had once exemplified, to shine a light on the obscenity of an arrogant man in power who was willing to sacrifice the lives of American sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers – people who believed in patriotism and service – while in his own life, he had cheated his way out of facing any danger, and then had even cheated his way out of the little he was asked to do, in ways that should have met with courtmartial – Rather was thrown under the wheels by a corporation profitting from Bush policy.

And the man who brought him the infamous memos was publicly trashed.

Now that, for Rove, must have been the real Mission Accomplished. Three targets destroyed.

After all, the Bush family had it in for Rather since his 1988 interview with then Vice President George H.W. Bush, seeking to be President, at last. Bush was ready to discuss his candidacy for the Republican nomination, but Rather questioned him about his involvement in the Iran Contra criminal arms-trading operation.

As for the man with the memos, that was Retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, who had witnessed both the 1997 phone call from Texas Governor Bush’s Chief of Staff Joe Albaugh 1997 requesting the scrubbing of the files of George W. Bush at the Texas Air National guard, and the actual scrubbing itself.

His story had been well documented and defended by James Moore, co-author of Bush’s Brain, in his new book, Bush’s War for Reelection, in February 2004.

It was their public appearances for the book tour that prompted the anonymous phone call Burkett received from an Hispanic-sounding woman, calling herself Lucy, saying she had evidence she wanted him to have, memos from Bush’s commanding officer documenting his irresponsibility and the favoritism he was given.

The memos were later surreptitiously delivered to Burkett by an unidentified caucasian man without further information.

There are those who believe this unknown man and Hispanic sounding woman were the friends of Karl Rove, the infamously nasty Roger Stone and his Cuban wife, Nydia Bertran-Stone.  Stone most recently turned Elliot Spitzer in to the FBI last year after a vicious battle while serving as a consultant to the New York state Republican party.

Burkett did nothing with them for months – until the lies of the Bush campaign, particularly the swift boat ads, became too insulting, and he offered the memos to Abu Ghraib reporting producer Mary Mapes at CBS, the bonus target.

And when the 60 Minutes II report aired, the attack on the veracity of the memos was too ready, too fast, too organized. Witnesses were pressured into denial, and Rather and Burkett were discredited and shamed. Mapes was fired.

Soon, Rather was gone, too. Burkett, already in poor health from an illness picked up during his military service for which the government refused to provide healthcare, suffered greatly.

And thus the memos, perhaps sent to Burkett to discredit the honest witness, must have delighted the White House when Burkett chose Mapes and Rather, the best and most dangerous in mainstream news broadcasting.

It is thrilling now to see Rather stand up to CBS with his $70 million lawsuit. The panel CBS formed to investigate the memos was ridiculously lead by Richard Thornburgh, Papa Bush’s Attorney General, who was known during his reign for re-classifying the most federal papers as top secret and unavailable in history, thus protecting many involved in Iran Contra and the BCCI scandal, as well as helping to hide the legal and financial scandals of the Bush sons. Oh, yes, he was the man to get to handle this Bush National Guard records problem.

In the interim, Rather has been reporting on Hdnet, a channel the huge controlling cable giant Comcast refuses to carry. So, most people can’t see the good work he’s doing at "Dan Rather Reports."

Perhaps Rather’s most important achievement there was in August 2007, Episode 227, when he documented the former employees of Sequoia, the company that had long produced the punch card paper ballots, and their story of the changes in quality and specs made for the ballots being shipped to Palm Beach, Florida for the 2000 election – all of which has lead to the Bush presidency and the implementation of HAVA (authored by the indicted Bob Ney), handing elections over to hackable voting machines produced by corrupt private contractors – and thus, Bush’s second term (PDF of Transcript available on this page -- don't pick the "View Online", it's not even broken into paragraphs).

So, I dedicate this posting of my own presentation of Know Bush Facts to Dan Rather and his courage and re-dedication to investigative journalism, and to Bill Burkett, a man of integrity, and to Mary Mapes -- all victims of the Bush White House lies.

Authors Website: http://oneperson-knowmore.blogspot.com

Authors Bio:
"Look around. You're not alone, and you know what we need to know. So go tell it on the mountains and in the cities. From your websites and laptops, tell it. From the street corners and coffeehouse, tell it. From delis and diners, tell it. From the workshop and the bookstore, tell it. On campus, at the mall, the synagogue, sanctuary and mosque, tell it. Tell it where you can, when you can and while you can. Tell America what we need to know, and we may just rekindle the patriot dream." -- Bill Moyers (as Studs Terkel calls him, "my North Star"), June 7, 2008 at the National Conference on Media Reform. . .

I am a working mom living in the very red state of Utah who began to really pay attention in 2003 and began sharing what I found out in 2004 -- with "Know Bush Facts", a series of 40 emailed statements that culminated with "Know Bush: Launching Facts That Shock & Awe, A One Person Patriot Act" -- a presentation of the best of the facts retold for theatre -- in October 2004.

I continue to write about the hypocrisies I study, believing that what the Bush administration has done goes far beyond partisan disagreement and should be known. I've learned that it isn't that hard to discover the bit of information that puts the news we see into a much greater perspective.

I don't need to bash. I don't even need to convince. I simply need to reveal what is going on behind the tap dancing.