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.
The only reson the documents were not easily dismissed as forgeries is that CBS was close minded to facts and reasoned analysis.
We were able to elect Nixon twice and Reagan twice in the face of unanswered MSM hostility. We are much stronger now than we were then. I don't fear 2008 the way so many here do.
meaning ---- the truth. Full lies ahead.
That's just SOP at CBS.
I am inclined to say that she's only embarassing herself further, but apparently she's immune from embarassment. I suppose she just wants to draw comfort from people like herself who are so blinded by their prejudices that they cannot recognize the truth when it hits them in the face. This is really a sad story; in a way I feel sorry for her.
There are a lot of people I feel sorry for whom I don't want piloting airliners, performing surgery or reporting the news.
The truly troubling aspect of this is that without the internet this nutcase not only survived, but thrived in an organization whose charter should be, first, to get the story right.
Nope, it is YOU who doesn't "get it." You don't understand the FIRST rules about journalism on the left.
1) When they run a hit piece, it is an honest if aggressive, credulous yet measured attempt to uncover the sinister machinations of the right.
2) When "mistakes are made" it is a result of a politically driven "campaign" to smear the media for doing honest objective reporting.
Try to get that through your skull, you right wing Neanderthal, bible screeching, having sex with your guns, homophobic, not caring for the poor, McCarthyite.... REPUBLICAN, you!
LOL! I agree with ya...but they've been in major meltdown now for a couple of years. I think it's going to reach it's zenith with their continuing losses in the next election.
I also don't think they have enough mojo to pull off a filibuster. So many of the current rats in the Senate voted FOR Alito's appeals court confirmation in 1990. It will put them in a treacherous position were they to try to change their minds now.
Bush is brilliant in his selection of Alito.
Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power
Mary Mapes
Pub. Date: November 8, 2005
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 61,462
^5 you da man !
"If I was an idiot" yada yada yada...
I think I've seen real documents that prove that you, Mary, are indeed an idiot.
He would be upset that you can't get away with the lying and smearing any more.
Mary Mapes and Al Gore to star in "I coulda been a contender" - on the waterfront 2
Technical Analysis of Forgeries:
http://homepage.mac.com/cfj/newcomer/index.htm
....as if the 30 minute MS Word perfectly matching recreation wasn't enough.
BTTT
LOL
A crying towel for another pimp of the election industry!
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