Free Republic

I'm dancing on the top deck with a 71-year-old feminist and psychotherapist whom I've come to think of as the Twirler. We've spent two days attending seminars on The Nation magazine's Alaska cruise; we've talked about the Bush presidency and prison reform and single-payer health care. Now, at almost midnight, my fiercely intelligent and opinionated new friend is putting all the heady political talk behind her by bodily twirling. "If I start to get dizzy, then I twirl in the opposite direction," Charlotte tells me as the live band revs up its throbbing Motown beat. "I won't fall." "Good, please...

Dan RatherÂ’s Last Big Story Is Himself By Joe Hagan Published Nov 25, 2007 If he werenÂ’t famous, heÂ’d be mistaken for a veteran of a long-ago war: khaki safari shirt on his back, scuffed combat boots on his feet, that wiry crest of a brow, rheumy eyes under heavy lids, lower lip jutting out like an ornery fish resisting a hook. When Dan Rather sits on a bench in Central Park to tell how his 44-year career at CBS News ended in ignominy and humiliation, he is in fact still waging a war, a bitter and personal one. And...

I have obtained new documentary evidence regarding Dan Rather's relationship with his former bosses at CBS News. Obviously, I cannot identify my source. But he told me during a collect call from Sofia, Bulgaria, that he has access to Rather's "personal files" and that his typewriter was built after 1966. To authenticate the document, I showed it to some of my kids' friends, and they said it was awesome. Here, then, the letter -- written by Dan Rather and dated Nov. 31, 2006: "Dear CBS News: "My new career at HDNet is keeping me busier than a bordello at Mardis...

In 2004, at the height of the Dan Rather Memogate story, I wrote in National Review: “Across the media universe the questions pour out: Why is Dan Rather doing this to himself? Why does he drag this out? Why won’t he just come clean? Why would he let this happen in the first place? Why is CBS standing by him? Why ... why ... why? “There is only one plausible answer: Ours is a just and decent God.” Well, God has not forsaken us. Dan Rather seems divinely inspired to crash more times than a Kennedy driving home from an...

Partners in deception, partners in denial . . . Earlier today I noted that in her HuffPo column, ex-CBS producer Mary Mapes continues to cling to the delusion that the Memogate documents were authentic. In an inteview on "Morning Joe," Dan Rather has now made a similar reality-denying claim. Mika Brzezinski, who, as was repeatedly pointed out, used to work at CBS and has friends on both sides of the issue, conducted the interview. Bubbles didn't have the gumption to confront Rather with the crux of the issue: the forged documents at the heart of the story. Interestingly, Rather chose...

How can I put this nicely? Mary Mapes [file photo] has reality "issues." Three years after she was exposed for having perpetrated one of the worst frauds in the history of presidential-campaign journalism, she continues to paint herself as the victim of a right-wing conspiracy. And incredibly, despite a mountain of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, she clings to the notion that the blatantly forged documents at the heart of the Memogate story were authentic. Mapes's meltdown-in-the-guise-of-a-column appeared in yesterday's Huffington Post. Excerpts from the metaphor-gone-wild "Courage for Dan Rather" [emphasis added]: [We] reaped a whirlwind of right-wing outrage and...

Dan Rather has had three years to mull over his options after his disastrous participation in Memogate, and he has reached the conclusion that the most wronged person in the debacle was ... Dan Rather. After spending the last three years insisting that the obviously fraudulent memos he broadcast as senior editor of CBS Nightly News have not been proven fakes, he now will sue CBS for $70 million for not participating in his fantasies: Dan Rather, whose career at CBS News ground to an inglorious end 15 months ago over his role in an unsubstantiated report questioning President Bush’s...

Put aside for a minute the chuckles over a leftist magazine, dedicated to the poor of the earth and the worship of Mother Earth, holding a cruise for the rich on a big, polluting cruise ship. Guess who's coming to dinner on The Nation's Tenth Annual Seminar Cruise? Mary Mapes, touted on the Nation Cruise website as the "Peabody Award Winning Former CBS News Producer." It should read: "Phony Document Specialist/Celebrated Smearer of Bush's National Guard Record."

Remember those photos that have been running in the media showing a rescue worker holding a dead child following the Israeli air strike in Qana? The message of those pictures has been powerful: look at what those evil Israelis did to that poor, innocent child. Well, now we learn that all may not be what it seems. Many of those pictures were taken by the photographers for wire services like the Associated Press, Reuters and the always pro-terrorist Agence France-Presse, also known as AFP. But an enterprising British blogger decided to dig a bit deeper. He looked at the time...

Title Can the internet ever produce a purity of consent? A case study of Rathergate. Introduction On September 8th 2004, memos by the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian purporting to show that a subordinate of his, one George W. Bush, had a less than perfect war record during the Vietnam conflict, were aired by CBS show 60 Minutes II. I believe no academic study on this topic exists. A search of the Proquest dissertations database reveals no existing work. There are several books extant which subjectively cover the episode from various points of view. I will utilise these as...

Declaring he “absolutely” believes “the truth” of his discredited story based on forged memos, about President Bush's National Guard record, on Wednesday's Larry King Live on CNN Dan Rather contended that “we had a lot, a lot of corroboration, of what we broadcast about President Bush's military record. It wasn't just the documents.” Rather then attacked those who dared to expose his misdeeds: “It's a very old technique used, that when those who don't like what you're reporting believe it can be hurtful, then they look for the weakest spot and attack it, which is fair enough. It's a diversionary...

(NOTE TO FReaders. I would not normally alter the basic article, but it so full of delusional thoughts and outright lines that direct attribution is needed so FReader will see what is being references, much like DUmmie Funnies from PJ Comix) STORY FOLLOWS By Mary Mapes My first thought when I read the NY Post's latest Page Six item on Dan Rather was that Dan must have missed a hush money payment or something. Reading on, I realized this was actually an opening publicity volley for a new book, one that is probably guaranteed a small but ready readership. (IT...

Leslie Cauley, the USA Today reporter who last week “broke” the news that three major U.S. telecommunications companies were assisting the National Security Agency in building a database to more easily track any communications by potential terrorists, is listed as a donor to former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt... A search found a listing for "writer and journalist" Leslie Cauley, indicating she gave $2,000 to Gephardt on June 30, 2003, when Gephardt was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. And that seems not to be her only tie to Democratic politics ... Cauley's link to a Democratic campaign seems likely...

It's time for the 18th annual Media Research Center's awards for the most biased, manipulative or downright goofy quotes from liberals in the "mainstream" media. I'm honored to serve, once again, on MRC's distinguished panel of conservatively biased judges. Here are some of the highlights from among the winners and runners-up of Best Notable Quotables of 2005:

Have you noticed how quickly CBS ex-producer, Mary Mapes, has faded from public view? Her book bombed bigtime because NO ONE except for a few diehard loonies bought her completely unbelievable story. Mapes still contends that the obviously forged Texas Air National Guard documents that purported to prove that Bush was AWOL were authentic and that even if they were fake, the story is still somehow valid. Even many Liberals were embarrassed by Mary Mapes and hoped she would just go away. About the only TRUE BELIEVERS I have been able to find were, of course, in DUmmieland as...

Yesterday reader Randy Porter wrote in response to our post on Mary Mapes's letter to the editor of the Times Book Review. Porter wrote: I was reading your latest Mapes post and was struck by the irony of the situation she has manufactured for herself -- anyone who buys her story (hence her only daily company of friends and followers) is a fool. And she is quite aware of that fact. It seems a special kind of hell on earth. Colonel William Campenni (ret.) served with then-Lieutenant Bush in the same unit of the Texas Air National Guard. He wrote...

I just noticed this after another freeper commented that the Wikipedia article on memogate was generally favorable to free republic yesterday. Literally a few moments after the post, some leftist wacko essentially rewrote the entire Wikipedia article on memogate using talking points that supposedly "refute" each evidence item that shows they were forgeries. He added a bunch of citations to TANG-Bush conspiracy sites and the site he used the most (12 times) was www.truthandduty.com. In case you don't know www.truthandduty.com is Mary Mapes' website pushing her new book. Here's the link of all the changes that were made - it's...

Started 5 minutes ago... The CSpan2 RealAudio and Windows Media buttons are on the right-hand side, around mid-way down.

On Saturday, December 3 at 8:00 pm and Sunday, December 4 at 6:00 pm and at 9:00 pm Description: This week on After Words journalist Mary Mapes explains her investigative story on George W. Bush's National Guard record that aired on 60 Minutes II. Her new book about the experience is titled "Truth and Duty: The Press, The President, and the Privilege of Power." Ms. Mapes tells her version of the controversy over the segment, and the ensuing internal investigation at CBS that led to Dan Rather's resignation as anchor of CBS Evening News, and her own dismissal. She is...

While theories about President John Kennedy’s assassination abound, CBS News announced that it is in possession of documents proving that President Bush pulled the trigger. Former CBS data fabricator, Mary Mapes, said an unidentified man handed her an envelope with the incriminating documents while she was touring to promote her new book. “Taking time out from her book tour, Mary Mapes faxed us a copy of a letter in which the then 17-year-old George Bush admitted to accidentally shooting JFK while ‘goofing around’ with his hunting rifle,” said Jack Skwaht, speaking on behalf of CBS News. “The letter is a...

Ever since the controversy over the CBS use of forged memos erupted, those disappointed by the exposure of the forgeries have wondered if the whole thing wasn't some sort of set up perpetrated by the Dark Lord, Karl Rove. Integral to this paranoid theorizing was their slack-jawed amazement that anyone could have observed and commented that the documents were fake based on typography as quickly as I did. How could anyone not on the inside have articulated a technical and convincing explanation that the documents were fake within a few hours of the broadcast? Well, here's your answer. It's probably...

Mary Mapes, former data fabricator for CBS News, is doing the talk show circuit touting her new book: "Truth or Duty." She described her excruciating dilemma over the story on President Bush’s National Guard service. “On the one hand is the expectation that, as reporters, we should tell the truth,” said Mapes. “On the other hand, there was our duty to do all we could to save America from George Bush. We were torn.” Mapes went on to explain that since she and Dan Rather knew the president is evil, taking him down was the higher priority. “I mean, look...

That whinning snitch (har), Mary Mapes, continues her whinning tour-de-force, this time on KGO radio 810 in S.F. "I've always worked like a dog", proclaims the Mighty Mapes. Snausages anyone?

September 9, 2004 Documents Suggest Special Treatment for Bush in Guard By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and RALPH BLUMENTHAL ASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - President Bush's Vietnam-era service in the National Guard came under renewed scrutiny on Wednesday as newfound documents emerged from his squadron commander's file that suggested favorable treatment. At the same time, a once powerful Texas Democrat came forward to say that he had "abused my position of power" by helping Mr. Bush and others join the Guard. Democrats also worked to stoke the issue with a new advertisement by a Texas group that featured a former lieutenant colonel,...

" MAPES SYDROME " ?? Is there really such a thing that has been and still IS running rampet around what's called the " Liberal Media " ?? After hearing the various reports from Talk Shows and Radio, I have " Seared into my mind..." the quote from Mary Mapes concerning her supporting the forged " found Military Documents " of George Bush .(that were attempted to be used by liberals and their Agenda to discredit President Bush and his re-election campaign.) Her QUOTE to justify her standing by her beliefs that the documents that were Proven Forged ARE and...

Electroshock therapy? Do you think that would help? MIDI - IT MUST HAVE BEEN LOVE - 2nd version I hate Buckhead and the FReepers...they had cost me a great job They made me look foolish...a left wing whackjob...they had piled on like a mob...like a mob I got blamed...they threw me out...out the door I must have been sane but that's over now I must have been sane but my mind's lost somehow I must have been sane but that's over now I'll get you, JimRob...I am making that vow That "th" thing was a problem...but denial I'll sustain You...

Go check out this chat! This woman is insane!

MEMO-GATE On Friday, September 3, 2004, I was closing down my office and thinking about the Labor Day Weekend ahead when the phone rang and the caller asked whether I would be willing to work over the weekend on some important, time-sensitive documents. This was the beginning of my involvement in the examination of documents in the Bush National Guard Document/Memo-Gate news story. This week, the book "Truth and Duty" by Mary Mapes, former CBS producer, was released. The book contains several inaccuracies in the description of my participation. Because the book is a public document, I see it as...

On Friday, September 3, 2004, I was closing down my office and thinking about the Labor Day Weekend ahead when the phone rang and the caller asked whether I would be willing to work over the weekend on some important, time-sensitive documents. This was the beginning of my involvement in the examination of documents in the Bush National Guard Document/Memo-Gate news story. This week, the book "Truth and Duty" by Mary Mapes, former CBS producer, was released. The book contains several inaccuracies in the description of my participation. Because the book is a public document, I see it as my...

It is apparent that CBS News producer Mary Mapes hasn't learned anything after being fired for using forged documents to smear President Bush. She calls White House official Karl Rove the "mastermind" of the attacks on her story but admits to the Washington Post that she has no proof of that. The Mapes performance, which is designed to sell her new book, can only diminish the reputation of journalism even more. Have we reached a point in journalism where the facts and evidence simply don't matter? Her bizarre performance continued on CNN's Larry King Live, where she was asked if...

Mary Mapes, making the rounds on her new book, appeared on The Situation Room today to argue her story with veteran reporter Howard Kurtz. Kurtz gave Mapes the HOWARD KURTZ: What is amazing to me Wolf is that 14 months after this story blew up we are still talking about a story that was retracted by CBS news, an independent commission found that Mary Mapes and her colleagues had failed miserably to authenticate. I can’t prove the documents aren’t real, but unfortunately for Mary, I sympathies for anyone who has gone through the battering she has, she can’t prove that...

I LOVE the fact that Mary Mapes is now making the rounds of the media circuit and plugging her pathetic fiction book defending her use of FORGED documents for a SeeBS story last year. The more she blabs the more folks out there see that most of the MSM, as Bernie Goldberg has claimed, is BIASED. And remember. Mary Mapes is TYPICAL of the producers in the MSM television newsrooms. Of course, Mary does have a few staunch defenders. Does it surprise anybody that such defenders are from DUmmieland as you can see in this THREAD titled, "Fired CBS...

Anyone else happen to catch Mary Mapes on CNN's American Morning just now? It was much the same stuff we heard last night on Larry King; however she sounds a tad more bitter and combative today. She deeply resents being made the victim of a "drunken blogging brawl (because that's what it was)". Good people, this tippling-in-front-of-the-computer has to stop now. Just imagine how we could change America if we were all posting sober.

November 09, 2005 Mary Mapes Names Names ("Anonymous" Ones) Posted by Bill An excerpt from page 201 of her new book: Within minutes of Buckhead's original posting, Freepers began to repeat and embellish Buckhead's thoughts. Not surprisingly, they all agreed with him, they all agreed with one another, and they all agreed this should be pursued aggressively. Freethinkers they are not. The Freepers and their lockstep like-minded fellow travelers moved as a group, like a school of sharks sweeping toward an unaware and unarmed victim. CBS was like some sunburned, overweight Florida tourist with a cut foot, floundering and flapping...

< MIDI - MORE THAN A FEELING She woke up one morning and her job was gone Suits in the boardroom said go away The docs were phony the FReepers showed For her and Dan it's a bad hair day (musical break) She was sent reeling...she tried to hurt Dubya Her dirty dealing...had been stopped, and she started to cry But watch Mary Mapes...still telling lies (musical break) So many people she had deceived Hatred of Bush made them blind with rage She's claiming that she...did nothing wrong And she is stuck on the same old page On the same...

RUSH: Okay, gotta hear this. We got a lot more sound bites of this, but this is the money sound bite. Brian Ross today talking to Mary Mapes of CBS says, "After 12 years of defending him, CBS and Dan Rather later admitted they couldn't vouch for the authenticity of the documents, Bill Burkett's documents, and that they should not have been used and the story should not have aired. Do you," Mary Mapes, "still think the story was true?" MAPES: The story? Absolutely. ROSS: This seems remarkable to me that you would sit here now and say you still...

EX-CBS producer Mary Mapes, fired over a controversial "60 Minutes II" story on President Bush's National Guard service, says she still believes the report was "true" — and accurate. "No one has proved that the documents were not authentic," Mapes says on this morning's "Good Morning America." Mapes is breaking her silence to promote her new book, "Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power." --Snip-- She says she "did not have it in for George Bush" and says she doesn't feel responsible for what happened to her colleagues in the scandal's aftermath. --Snip-- What Mapes...

Have at him!

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/print?id=1292736 'Truth and Duty' Producer Argues She Was Abandoned By Mainstream Press and Attacked by the Right Nov. 7, 2005 — - Last year the world of broadcast news was rocked when Dan Rather stepped down as CBS' evening news anchor after questions emerged over a network report on President Bush's National Guard service. The documents used in a segment of "60 Minutes II" were discredited; segment producer Mary Mapes' impressive career came crashing down -- she was fired from the network. In a statement CBS News said: "Mary Mapes' actions damaged CBS News as an organization and brought pain...

After a year of silence about the biggest scandal in CBS News history, Mary Mapes has plenty to say -- about George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Les Moonves, her father, bloggers, the mainstream press and others who she believes contributed to her downfall. What took her so long? "I was extremely battered," she said in an interview yesterday. "I'd had months and months of having my head kicked around a soccer stadium by much of the Western world. I needed some time to regroup." Mapes is now pushing a book, called "Truth and Duty," about the botched "60 Minutes II"...

The best clue as to whether a new movie is a stinker is if there are NO movie reviews available when it is released. This means the production company has so little confidendence in their own film that they refuse to allow critics get a preview of it so as to have their reviews ready by the release date. Better to keep the public in the dark than to give them advanced warning that the movie is a complete bomb. Likewise a good indicator as to whether a book really stinks is if NO advance book review copies have...

In her first interview since being fired, former CBS News producer Mary Mapes maintains that her controversial "60 Minutes II" story on President Bush's National Guard service was "true" and that "no one has proved that the documents were not authentic."... In her interview with ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross, to be broadcast Wednesday morning on "Good Morning America," Mapes says she is unrepentant about her role. "I don't think I committed bad journalism. I really don't," she says.... Mapes says Rather did not have "any obligation to resign" from his position, as CBS correspondent Mike Wallace recently...

<p>"The scandal at CBS involved the use of phony documents to make charges against President Bush regarding his Air National Guard service that were not only unsubstantiated, but contradicted by evidence and information known to CBS at the time."</p> <p>In memory of Reed Irvine, founder of Accuracy in Media, AIM is awarding its first annual Reed Irvine Investigative Journalism award to two of the bloggers responsible for exposing Rathergate—Dan Rather's use of forged documents to smear President Bush. This episode was a milestone in the history of journalism.</p>

I've just read the Vanity Fair article excerpting Mary Mapes's new book, Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power. Yes, that is the title. No, there are no reports of lightning striking anywhere near Ms. Mapes for writing a book that uses "truth" and "duty" in its title. First thought: Dear Lord, if I ever botch a story as badly as Mapes did, and, say, write a huge expose on Kim Jong-Il's inappropriate relationship with a goat, and it turns out that the memo describing said relationship was not actually written in North Korean...

NEW YORK 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...

NEW YORK 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...

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...

As a result of a previous DUmmie FUnnies edition, Mary Mapes Spins Fiction---Book Excerpt, first the excerpt and then the entire book itself was REMOVED from Amazon.Com due to the EMBARRASSMENT of daring to quote Miss Mapes word for word. However, I am now pleased to announce that Mary Mapes' work of fiction has RETURNED to Amazon as you can see HERE. Although the original excerpt, which Mary Mapes found so embarrassing since it quoted her word-for-word, is gone, it has been replaced by a GLOWING review and blurb which we will now proceed to give the ol' DUFU...

NEW YORK Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post might have a bigger scoop than he thought. In his online column this morning, as a final, almost throwaway item, he quoted from the first chapter of the forthcoming book by former CBS producer Mary Mapes that covers, among other things, her controversial experience with the Dan Rather/Bush/National Guard “60 Minutes” segment. Among the excerpts: "I was incredulous that the mainstream press -- a group I'd been a part of for nearly twenty-five years and thought I knew -- was falling for the blogs' critiques. I was shocked at the ferocity of...

MIDI - CABARET You're caught red-handed but claim you've been wronged That seems a little odd Mary Mapes, welcome into our...political jihad Worse than a sandwich in which to be caught Between Fat Ted and Dodd Mary Mapes, welcome into our...political jihad When you tells lies, and then you cry No sympathy you'll be receiving...we're enjoying that you're grieving CBS let you try pulling your scam They gave you a wink and nod Mary Mapes, welcome into our...political jihad When you tells lies, and then you cry No sympathy you'll be receiving...we're enjoying that you're grieving You thought that...