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So Take a Full Hour: Mapes Claims Docs Can't Be 'Easily Dismissed' as Forgeries
Editor & Publisher ^

Posted on 11/01/2005 2:48:57 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest

In the upcoming December issue of Vanity Fair, Mary Mapes, the CBS News producer who lost her job after the disputed "60 Minutes II" Bush/National Guard report, writes, "I must answer the bloggers, the babblers and blabbers, and the true believers who have called me everything from 'feminazi' to an 'elitist liberal' to an 'idiot.'

"If I was an idiot, it was for believing in a free press that is able to do its job without fear or favor. ...I didn't know that the attack on our story was going to be as effective as a brilliantly run national political campaign, because that is what it was: a political campaign."

The December article, not yet generally available, is an excerpt from Mapes' soon-to-be-publihsed book, "Truth and Duty" (St. Martin's) on her career and the episode often called Rathergate. Vanity Fair says Mapes sets out to "answer her critics."

Mapes writes that she had felt the Guard segment was a big success after airing on Sept. 8, 2004, until the following morning at 11 a.m. when she learned that a bunch of "far-right" Web sites were claiming that documents were forged.

That same day about 3 p.m. she recalls staring at the Drudge Report and seeing a big picture of Rather at the top and a headline saying that he was "shaken" and hiding in his office. The phone rang and it was Rather, telling her he'd just heard about the Drudge deadline and he wanted to assure her that he was not "shaken" and was not even in his office.

He signed off with a favorite expression of his: "FEA" for "---- them all."

She writes that what she didn't know at the time was that the attack on the "60 Minutes" piece was just part of the Bushites "sliming" of those who raised questions about the president.

Aftdr detailing the unraveling of the Guard segment, Mapes describes crying her eyes out at an airport bathroom after Rather tells her by phone that CBS was going to apologize for the report and appoint a commitee to investigate what went wrong. Rather also told her to get a lawyer.

Finally, she details how in that probe the question of how "liberal" she was became paramount. She likens it to the days of Sen. Joe McCarthy and charges that it was ironic that the same network that stood up to McCarthy with the Edward R. Murrow broadcasts was now caving in to similar tactics now: "Suspected liberals had become the new 'Communists...What in the world would Edward R. Murrow think of his network now?"

In the end she observes that the outside panel that probed the report and found correct procedures were lacking did not investigate the legitimacy of the documents. She claims that a researcher has since shown her typography on other documents from the period Bush was in the Guard that suggest that the memos she obtained can not be easily dismissed "as being forgeries."

She also calls one of the co-leaders of that probe, Dick Thornburgh, worse than an "empty suit...He was completely full if it."

Throughout the article, Vanity Fair frequently cuts away for bracketed response from others involved in the episode who answer or rebut some of her charges.

At one point, for example, she asserts that CBS News chief Andrew Heyward said that if the bloggers could come up with "lousy analysts" to attack the authenticity of the memos CBS could find its own "lousy analysts." In an e-mail to Vanity Fair, Heyward denied this.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: cbs; mapes; mapesforbrains; marymapes; rather; rathergate
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To: governsleastgovernsbest
Finally, she details how in that probe the question of how "liberal" she was became paramount.

OF COURSE it did. Because how many several-years-long probes into Kerry and his many dubious Vietnam claims did CBS do, after all? (For that matter, how many short-term probes did they do?)

161 posted on 11/01/2005 7:03:43 AM PST by agrace (Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me if you know so much. Job 38:4)
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To: Condor51

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1513295/posts

I posted a CIA summary here. FRegards....


162 posted on 11/01/2005 7:08:01 AM PST by Arthur Wildfire! March ("Every time the court veers left, the people are overwhelmingly opposed." [Laura Ingraham])
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To: governsleastgovernsbest
Ms. Mapes, does the acronym STFU mean anything to you?
163 posted on 11/01/2005 7:13:26 AM PST by RayChuang88
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To: RayChuang88
As the great Ma-ha Rushie sez: Let them talk!
164 posted on 11/01/2005 7:18:28 AM PST by sausageseller (Look out for the jackbooted spelling police. There! Everywhere!(revised cause the "man" accosted me!)
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To: Eddie01

Good one!


165 posted on 11/01/2005 7:18:52 AM PST by ghitma (Lifter)
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To: kb2614

How about, "running dog of the Republican, Vast Right Wing Conspiracy"?

CA....


166 posted on 11/01/2005 7:19:25 AM PST by Chances Are (Whew! It seems I've once again found that silly grin!)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest
"If I was an idiot,...

As though there were any question.

167 posted on 11/01/2005 7:23:56 AM PST by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest
He signed off with a favorite expression of his: "FEA" for "---- them all."

This statement is more telling about Rather than just about any other. The "them" are anybody not within his political hemisphere, namely Republicans.

168 posted on 11/01/2005 7:33:54 AM PST by AmusedBystander
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

I am glad Mary Mapes got fired and humiliated by her actions. I live in Oklahoma City and Carol Marin of 60 Minutes was going to do a story on the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. It would have covered information that had not been brought out in the national media about the connection to Middle Eastern terrorists and state sponsored terrorism that was being covered up by the administration of President Clinton. Clinton did not want any state sponsored terrorism on his watch.

David Schippers knew Carol personally and thought highly of her. The feeling was mutual. Schippers wrote the forward to the book, "The Third Terrorist" by Jayna Davis. (See jaynadavis.com) This is the book that details the involvement of an Iraqi member of the Republican Guard in the OKC bombing. The story was vetoed by a producer at 60 Minutes. That producer was none other than Mary Mapes. Mapes is the one that is the political hack with an agenda.


169 posted on 11/01/2005 8:17:08 AM PST by Nancie Drew
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To: Arthur Wildfire! March
Ex Communist Chambers testified before Congress and exposed Hiss as a spy. Chambers hid some evidentuary papers inside a pumpkin on his farm, an act which gave rise to "the pumpkin papers" reference.

He was vilified for years and Hiss was defended by the liberals, but the proof of Hiss's treason was bullet proof.

Incidentally, William F. Buckley was Chambers' ostracized friend and visited him at his farm right up until Chambers' death. I've always admired Buckley for that kindness and loyalty.

170 posted on 11/01/2005 8:26:52 AM PST by Carolinamom (Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning......Psalm 30:5)
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To: Erik Latranyi
You must wonder if the Moors really understood that their term as rulers of Spain was over when Hannibal crossed the Pirinees?

What's that all about???

CA....

171 posted on 11/01/2005 8:29:24 AM PST by Chances Are (Whew! It seems I've once again found that silly grin!)
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To: Carolinamom
Let me clarify that above...It was Chambers who was ostracized, not Buckley.

Chambers went on to write a best selling book...considered a classic now. It's title is, appropriately enough WHITNESS.

172 posted on 11/01/2005 8:32:48 AM PST by Carolinamom (Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning......Psalm 30:5)
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To: Carolinamom

That's WITNESS. (Sorry speller here.)


173 posted on 11/01/2005 8:34:01 AM PST by Carolinamom (Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning......Psalm 30:5)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest
She claims that a researcher has since shown her typography on other documents from the period Bush was in the Guard that suggest that the memos she obtained can not be easily dismissed "as being forgeries."

Below is forged CBS document overlayed by Microsoft Word in default mode......courtesy Little Green Footballs..

----------------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

....you go girl...

174 posted on 11/01/2005 10:31:27 AM PST by Donald Rumsfeld Fan ("Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate". NYTimes)
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To: Donald Rumsfeld Fan

"Yeah, well maybe, but, uh, that wasn't easy, was it?" ;-)


175 posted on 11/01/2005 10:34:22 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest (read my posts on Today show bias at www.newsbusters.org)
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To: TankerKC
"Easily dismissed" is an appropriate characterization. All it took was one glance to see that they could not be what they were purported to be.

Your one glance was a more thorough analysis than all of Mary Mapes' experts gave put together, I'll concede that.

176 posted on 11/01/2005 10:34:30 AM PST by jalisco555 ("The right to bear weapons is the right to be free." A. E. Van Vogt)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest
"...'sliming' those who raised questions about the president..."

No, it was more like exposing the real slimers for the LIARS that they are!

177 posted on 11/01/2005 10:45:47 AM PST by NoClones
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To: governsleastgovernsbest
Mapes Claims Docs Can't Be 'Easily Dismissed' as Forgeries

Puh-leeze. Trying to pass these things off as actual memos typed on a Texas Air National Guard base in 1973 is like trying to pass off Plan Nine From Outer Space clips as actual UFO footage.

178 posted on 11/03/2005 10:25:38 AM PST by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)
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To: steve-b
Like trying to pass off Plan Nine From Outer Space clips as actual UFO footage.

Now just wait a second. You're telling me that Plan Nine stuff isn't real? ;-)

179 posted on 11/03/2005 10:45:03 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest (read my posts on Today show bias at www.newsbusters.org)
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