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.
Ya got a link for that court case?!
I went back and read this story again and this sentence really struck me....
"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."
Big success? Is that what the press is supposed to do? Air stories that are big successes? Meaning what? That it would ruin George W. Bush's chance of re-election? Isn't the press supposed to report the true facts and let the people decide? What made her think it was a big success? How did she know so soon that it was a big success? Was it because it was all over the liberal MSM? She and Dan Blather really were trying to bring down this president. They are the slime balls. The so called MSM scares the hell out of me. Even Fox News has gone bad. Who can you trust anymore?
Very well put. Mapes gives away the game. The segment was exactly the kind of campaign ploy of which she later accused the right. A classic case of projection.
So is the more Shilling for Socialists via Timmy Russert's (Go Bills) wife at Vanity Fair. That rag seems to be working overtime to salvage every chronically lying liberal around--Mapes--Wilson, etc.
The sun is coming down on the entire ward of liberals. ..better have plenty of meds ready.
AuH20......it was my first real political campaign...as a teenager..
"If I was an idiot, it was for believing in a free press that is able to do its job without fear or favor."
TRANSLATED: SHE'S ANGRY BECAUSE THE MSM CAN NO LONGER LIE ABOUT REPUBLICANS AND GET AWAY WITH IT.
...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."
TRANSLATED: SHE'S ANGRY BECAUSE OUR SIDE CAN NOW RUN A COUNTER POLITICAL CAMPAIGN TO HER'S, RATHER'S AND THE MSM'S.
You mean like Joe Wilson?
Why, thanks for setting m atraight, Chronic-loser.
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!
You left out "capitalist/imperialist running dog".
Have a nice day!
"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.
Afterwards, there was careful study, but only for the sake of the argument.
Hear! Hear! You nailed it. . .very well said!
Think of the Soviet rewrites of history for their own "masses".
Mapes--you liberal, lying, POS. YOU can be easily dismissed. There are slightly more than half of voting Americans who pine for truth and you can't deliver because your phony idealogy can't support the truth.
OK, I'll give her one.
Was a teen myself...too young to vote. I have a bottle of "Goldwater" cologne somewhere as well.
Thank you, thank you. :)
I can easily imagine him in a park wearing a trenchcoat and carrying a bag of candy---"Hey, come here little boy...."
The 60 Minutes stopwatch has hit 0 for Mary Mapes.
Speaking of "answering her critics," that researcher would be who? And those "other documents" are available for viewing where?
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