[governsleastgovernsbest]

You know you're in trouble when your defense consists of claiming that the documents can't be 'easily dismissed' as forgeries.

So, what, instead of the 30 minutes it took the blogosphere, it would really require a few hours of work to conclude the docs were fake?

Other than learning that Mary cried and that she thinks Thornburgh is full of it, what do we learn other than that even Mapes herself can't bring herself to claim that the documents are forgeries?

[dalereed]

"Suspected liberals had become the new 'Communists"

Two peas in a pod. New Communists or old Communists, what is the difference?

[bilhosty]

Our enemies...Communists, terrorists and CBS News.

[IronJack]

...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."

I didn't know that the STORY was going to be as effective as a POORLY run political campaign, because that's what it was: a political campaign.

[RichInOC]

1. Uh, Mary...yes, they can. Unless you think somebody time-traveled a PC with Microsoft Word loaded and at least an inkjet printer back to that Texas Guard unit thirty-some years ago.

And 2. FEA stands for "f**k 'em all", not "f**k them all".

[doug from upland]

She is still in denial. Our president had proven himself as commander in chief, but she hoped this story would do damage and affect the election. The story she should have done is that John Kerry met with the leadership of the VVAW and actually voted on whether to whack US Senators who supported the Vietnam War. He quit his leadership post that day but did not report it to the FBI. That is the military story that should have been reported.

[NonValueAdded]

Poor Mapes, stuck to her lie until the bitter end. She really is "stuck on stupid."

The thing is that this story is the archetypical example of the power of the blogosphere. Here is the timeline of how Buckhead et al exposed the documents as frauds: Bloggers Run Rings Around The Partisan, Lazy Old Media. Let's see if I can put this in terms Mapes and the rest of MSM can understand.

Say that Karl Rove told one of his VRWC minions, say maybe NonValueAddded, that one of his deep cover agents codename Judy Miller was in real trouble and that he needed a document produced that showed an editor changed all her copy to be supportive of the war, that Miller really was critical of the administration. I gulp and say "yes, your diabolical geniusship." Having no real experience at a newspaper, I grab an "editing for dummies" book at B&N and proceed to mark up a story that fits the wily Rove's spec. We float that story as breaking news on the Hannity and Colmes show. What would happen?

Mapes would spot my workproduct as a phony almost as fast as TankerKC could say "we need to see that story copy again." The thing is that NVA is not part of the journalism community - well, the old one at least. I wouldn't know the lingo or the mechanics and I certainly wouldn't have access to how things were done a few years ago at Miller's paper. I could fool the general public but for those from the newspaper subculture, my attempt would be transparent and quickly exposed. Well, the military is a subculture too and bureaucratic to boot. There are ways the military operates that are familiar to those within and completely foreign to those outside.

Now consider what is Free Republic. It is a gathering place for like-minded individuals that happen to include a good percentage of military and ex-military. Peruse any live thread such as the one in question and you will see how easily military subject matter experts happen to be present. When something comes up in their area of expertise, BAM! Now consider that Buckhead just happened to have expertise on fonts and the rest is history. Mapes unfortunately blundered into the perfect storm. She didn't know what she didn't know. It is pitiful that she is trying to keep the lie going when it is so crystal clear that the exposure of the documents was no fluke but rather the power of community, of an editorial board thousands strong with dozens it not hundreds reviewing her work product.

[Publius6961]

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."

Mary... Mary.

You're right. But you ran your "political campaign" disguised as news for 30 years, and it couldn't last forever.
Time to get a real job.
And yes, you are a whining idiot.

[Doc Savage]

This pathetic far-left wing extremist lesbian moron got ONE thing right!!! Liberals are the NEW COMMUNISTS!!!!!
wHICH IS MY FAVORITE AND OFT USED EXPRESSION,..........COMMUDEMS!!!

[The South Texan]

A year later and Mapes is still stuck on stupid.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

[PhilipFreneau]

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?"

I am a proud McCarthyite. Anyone who works to expose communists within our nation -- past, present or future -- is a hero of mine. Quoting from The Exhumation of Joe McCarthy:

"Is it possible that there was a vast Communist plot to subvert American democracy, and only McCarthy understood the depth of the problem? The new McCarthyites claim their reappraisal was triggered by new evidence: the declassification of a series of documents from the Soviet archives known as the Verona cables. These documents do indeed show that some of the individuals defended by the 1950s left and savaged by McCarthy were actually Soviet spies. The most prominent is the left's old cause celebre, Alger Hiss.

This is a serious blow, and it should be honestly acknowledged. A minority of people on the left are still inclined to see 1950s Stalinists as misguided idealists, decent believers in equality and liberty who somehow went astray. This is unsustainable. By the time Hiss was offering his secrets to Stalin's agents, the news about the gulags - vast concentration camps which slaughtered over 15 million innocent people - was out and beyond dispute. The US has many flaws, but it is lunatic to believe it is domestically equivalent to this; there are no mass graves in Kansas."

Also check out the Freeper post, Spies Among Us (withering critique of NY Times Commie Coverage) .

[ForGod'sSake]

.

[beezdotcom]

. ...I didn't know that the attack on our storypolitical hack job was going to be as effective as a brilliantly run national political campaign,"

There...I fixed her blather...

[TChris]

Suspected liberals aren't the new communists; they're precisely the same as the old communists! In fact, most of each are both!

Sharing the same zeal for unworkable idealism, disdain for truth and deceptive manipulation, communism and leftism are really the same thing.

[Question_Assumptions]

The sad thing is that if the mainstream media has it's way, her spin will become the accepted official analysis of the episode, much as the leftist spin on the Contras has become the accepted official analysis.

[agrace]

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?)

[RayChuang88]

Ms. Mapes, does the acronym STFU mean anything to you?

[facedown]

"If I was an idiot,...

As though there were any question.

[AmusedBystander]

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.

[Nancie Drew]

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.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

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...