Free Republic

A New York state Supreme Court judge Monday limited the scope of Dan Rather's $70-million lawsuit against CBS Corp., tossing out his claims that the network committed fraud and unlawfully interfered with his contract in his final months at the news division. But Justice Ira Gammerman allowed Rather to proceed with his claims that CBS broke the terms of his contract and breached its fiduciary duty by sidelining him in the wake of a controversial story about President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. The ruling "allows us to prove everything we need to prove to a jury,"...

The Media Mob has learned that a team of Hollywood insiders is currently working on a screen adaptation of Truth And Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power—the 2005 book by former CBS News producer Mary Mapes, in which she defends the 60 Minutes II story by Dan Rather about President George W. Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, which ran on CBS in September 2004 and eventually led to her ouster from the network. Who would want to turn "Rathergate" into a feature-length film? According to sources familiar with the situation, Producer Mikkel Bondesen,...

There is debatable evidence that right-wing radio and TV commentator Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" resulted in Sen. Hillary Clinton's narrow victory in Indiana's Democratic primary on Tuesday.Operation Chaos is Limbaugh's effort to encourage Republican voters to reregister as Democrats or cross over in primaries that permit it, like Indiana's. A vote for Clinton, in Limbaugh's master plan, assures an extended Democratic primary, weakening the eventual nominee.Of course, the egocentric bloviator is taking full credit for Clinton's win by only 14,000 votes in the Hoosier State. Limbaugh has a knack for taking credit for everything he promotes.Imagine if the Democrats were...

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...

New York magazine's Joe Hagan writes at length (5,700 words worth) about Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS. Hagan, who also wrote about Rather's successor Katie Couric for a cover story in July, conjures up a likely "catalyst" for Rather's suit: former producer Mary Mapes' book defending the Bush/National Guard story. Hagan writes: What was in the book wasn't surprising to Rather. What was surprising was that after its publication, Mapes hired a high-powered Houston lawyer named Mark Lanier to draw up a lawsuit against CBS, and CBS responded with a settlement before she had even filed it. What was in...

Dan Rather's lawsuit at CBS achieved its first purpose; it's put Dan Rather back in the spotlight. After having disappeared into the black hole of HDNet, Rather once again has become noteworthy enough to get an invitation on Larry King Live and the rest of the talkshows. However, if he had hoped to resurrect his reputation with the lawsuit, his colleagues have not been impressed (via QandO): Rather’s former colleagues at CBS have something to say. Take, for example, Don Hewitt, the legendary producer of “60 Minutes.” “Any news organization, print or broadcast, has the right to protect its reputation...

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...

Bob Owens has been in contact with the Public Affairs Officer for General David Petraeus: It’s Official: Beauchamp’s Claims Debunked by Army Internal Investigation.Col. Steven Boylan, Public Affairs Officer for U.S. Army Commanding General in Iraq David Petraeus, just emailed me the following in response to my request to confirm an earlier report that the U.S. Army’s investigation into the claims made by PV-2 Scott Thomas Beauchamp made in The New Republic had been completed.He states:To your question: Were there any truth to what was being said by Thomas?Answer: An investigation of the allegations were conducted by the command and...

Scott Thomas came out of the closet today. His real name is Scott Thomas Beauchamp and he's serving with Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division in Iraq: It’s been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq. I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join. That being said, my character, my experiences, and those...

Appearing on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe,' Disgraced former CBS producer Mary Mapes said she is “uncomfortable” watching Katie Couric anchor the network's evening news. Mapes came to this conclusion not because she is a woman as Katie would like you to believe, instead because she looks “drugged” and “kidnapped.” Video available here .Partial transcript: Mapes on Couric: She is "...someone who looks like they've been kidnapped and drugged and are making a hostage tape. It has nothing to do with her being a male or female, it's just not comfortable to watch."

As cable news becomes increasingly combative and opinionated, the financial news network CNBC is pushing in the other direction, introducing an hourlong monthly newsmagazine, “Business Nation.” “It really is a first in terms of a business-oriented newsmagazine,” the network’s vice president for special programming, Josh Howard, said. “No one has really done this.” The debut of “Business Nation,” which includes reports about the sale online of stolen goods and the popularity of martial arts fighting, will be Wednesday at 10 p.m. It will be repeated 8 to 10 times before the next installment is broadcast. “In order to make this...

Memogate Reunion! QUEEN MARY MapesGood news, phony document fans! The team that gave you Memogate is back in action. Former CBS News producer Mary Mapes has rejoined her old running partner Dan Rather at Mark Cuban's HDNet channel. Rather, 74, is starting all over at hi-def cable network with a weekly one-hour show that will translate the day's events into awkwardly-worded homespun similes. It debuts in October. Mapes, of course, was at the center of the scandal that triggered Rather's abrupt retirement from CBS: She was the producer of a 60 Minutes segment that showcased documents suggesting that, just maybe,...

Wednesday, Jun 07 Rick Kaplan Resigns: "He Has Led MSNBC Through A Period Of Impressive Growth" "I want to thank Rick for his service to MSNBC," NBC News president Steve Capus said in a message to MSNBC employees at 4pm. "Over the last two and a half years, Rick has been a tireless champion for the network and all the hard work you do each and every day. He has led MSNBC through a period of impressive growth especially in primetime. You, the staff at MSNBC, are enormously dedicated and have built a rock-solid foundation for our future growth. MSNBC...

(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...

This just in from source at Black Rock: He/She is at pre-season party in The Hamptons. Other CBSers (The Suits) are there as well. The Suits confirmed: Ran Rather's contract at CBS expires in August. He has not been offered ANY type of renewal. There may be some tiny dollar (the exact fee never to be disclosed) face-saving deal but that's it, Dan is out. This comes after he "resigned" from CBS Evening News position last year in an attempt to stop the bloodletting of advertisers at CBS. As we all know, the primary cause was not so much Rather's...

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...

Fired CBS "60 Minutes" producer Mary Mapes is still blaming the internet for ending her media career prematurely - or more precisely; the "vicious" bloggers who discovered that documents she unearthed in a bid to trash President Bush's National Guard service were forgeries. "The criticism that was launched at us initially really came from the very conservative blogosphere, folks who are on these very conservative web sites," Mapes complained Friday on WVMT Vermont's "Charlie & Ernie" radio show. "This was really a terribly vicious attack they launched on CBS," she insisted, before lamenting: "Politics is not necessarily the way it...

The year 2005 is ending as it began, with another successful election in Iraq and a liberal media still flapping around trying to find other controversies to submerge it. It does not matter to them that a Gallup poll found that 74 percent of Americans express confidence in their military, but only 28 percent express confidence in their newspapers or TV news outlets. The "mainstream" media excels in excoriating the performance of nearly everyone else, but acts as if nothing they do should be held up as ineffective, inaccurate or just plain absurd. That's why the Media Research Center and...

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...

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...

MARY MAPES IS BACK. With her memoir, Truth and Duty: The Press, The President, and the Privilege of Power, the former CBS News producer is trying to write a second act for her career. Sadly, if her book is any indication, her second act is just a repeat of the first. Mapes was the producer of the CBS 60 Minutes II segment on President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard that aired on September 8, 2004. According to the segment, President Bush had received preferential treatment in being admitted to the Guard, and once in, had served dishonorably....

I've spent the last few days reading Mary Mapes's Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power. Mapes was of course the producer of the September 8, 2004 60 Minutes II segment attacking President Bush's Air National Guard Service. The book is infuriating in so many ways that it would take an inordinate amount of space to do justice to it, and I'm not sure whether to take it seriously. Yet it has won remarkably favorable notices in respectable venues such as the Washington Post, for example, where Paul Farhi had kind words for it: "Lashing...

MIDI - SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN You better watch out...you may hear her cry You should be aware, I'm telling you why Mary Mapes is coming to town She's selling her book...it's fiction for sure Like white driven snow, she claims she is pure Mary Mapes is coming to town She hates the evil FReepers...Buckhead, perhaps the most She pushed her phony documents...and her job was turned to toast You better watch out...you may hear her cry You should be aware, I'm telling you why Mary Mapes is coming to town She'll never admit what she did...

Listen on streaming now: Mary Mapes trying to say that the documents were not fake...

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 website for her book Truth and Duty has a page labelled DOCUMENTS. On this page she has her famous "meshing" defense for proof that the memos were accurate. On November 16 she added 12 additional documents she got from the Texas National Guard Headquarters. Unwittingly, she posted documents that actually DISproved many of her arguments. Some of the documents were letters to the Guard Headquarters asking preferential treatment for the sons of important people, but the letters were actually refusals by the Guard commanders to these requests. They were only up for a day before someone at Mary's...

...Mary Mapes, the CBS producer fired over the journalistic fiasco involving President Bush's National Guard service, is the latest in a line of lonely crusaders, defending her work more than a year after it was widely discredited. Dan Rather may have apologized for the story, an independent panel may have denounced it and CBS News may have criticized her "disregard for journalistic standards," but Mapes argues in her new book that the critics are either politically motivated, cowardly or just plain wrong. In challenging those who have questioned her work -- including The Washington Post and this reporter, who is...

Buckhead is the Atlanta attorney who originally questioned the authenticity of the documents used to attack President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service in the September 8, 2004 60 Minutes II broadcast. He preferred anonymity for professional reasons, but a diligent reporter for the Los Angeles Times tracked him down and identified him in the immediate aftermath of Rathergate. A reader forwarded Buckhead's comments on the documents to us on September 9, and I included them in our original "Sixty-first Minute" post that morning. For the most part he has kept his silence. Now Mary Mapes is out peddling the...

Welcome to the next installment of the continuing saga: Mary Mapes vs. the Blogs, in which, for good measure, she takes on reality, too. And at the same time, we can consider the rise, fall -- and possible comeback -- of Mapes as part of the ongoing power-struggle between the MSM (Main Stream Media) and the New Media (NM). If you don't know that Mapes is the former CBS News producer who was the driving force behind the September 8, 2004 broadcast on "60 Minutes II," attacking George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard -- which was...

I REALIZED Mary Mapes had not told the whole story of the CBS-National Guard fiasco when I looked in the index to her book for a reference to The Boston Globe. It wasn't there. Why is this such a telltale omission? In an article published in February 2004, seven months before CBS News imploded, The Globe, under the headline "Doubts Raised on Bush Accuser," essentially destroyed the credibility of a man named Bill Burkett, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard. Burkett claimed to have stumbled upon some of George W. Bush's Guard records in a trash can...

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?

Welcome to the next installment of the continuing saga: Mary Mapes vs. the Blogs, in which, for good measure, she takes on reality, too. And at the same time, we can consider the rise, fall -- and possible comeback -- of Mapes as part of the ongoing power-struggle between the MSM (Main Stream Media) and the New Media (NM). If you don't know that Mapes is the former CBS News producer who was the driving force behind the September 8, 2004 broadcast on "60 Minutes II," attacking George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard -- which was...

Welcome to the next installment of the continuing saga: Mary Mapes vs. the Blogs, in which, for good measure, she takes on reality, too. And at the same time, we can consider the rise, fall -- and possible comeback -- of Mapes as part of the ongoing power-struggle between the MSM (Main Stream Media) and the New Media (NM). If you don't know that Mapes is the former CBS News producer who was the driving force behind the September 8, 2004 broadcast on "60 Minutes II," attacking George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard -- which was...

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,...

I was watching Maureen Dowd on Larry King last night and something she said jumped out at me. Read the quotes in bold below. One is from Maureen Dowd and the other is from Mary Mapes. (Both were on Larry King last week-but not on the same day). Obviously, journalism standards change from story to story depending on how they can be used to smear a Republican president: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/12/lkl.01.htmlKING:[talking about Judy Miller] Was she doing her job or was she caught up in it? DOWD: I think she was too creditable. And too, you know, investigative reporting is not stenography....

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!

I just heard on KABC in Los Angeles that MARY MAPES will be the guest after the top of the hour news. They are not taking calls, but you will get to here her in denial. LISTEN ONLINE -- http://www.kabc.com/listenlive.asp (you have to register, so get on it quickly)

The phony-but-accurate defense is back. Mary Mapes, producer of the notorious Rathergate story in which CBS relied on blatantly forged documents to argue that the young George W. Bush received preferential treatment in the National Guard, just completed an interview on Fox & Friends with ED Hill. ED was grilling Mapes rather hard as to the standards of authentication that were required to go forward with such an explosive story. Mapes first gave something of a "depends what the meaning of is, is" defense. She claimed that the standard of authentication for her purposes could be lower than that of...

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...

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...

Mary Mapes, the CBS producer that was in collusion with Dan Rather on the 60 minutes II MemoGate story has written a book about her adventures with "Dan Dan The News Man" and "Wild Eyed Bill Burkett". No reason to read the book unless you like modern day fables.  Mary is in fantasy land and is trying to pull everyone into her dreamworld and portray it as fact. TigerHawk &Little Green Footballshave more on Mary's imaginary journey. Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin, again...

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...

Mary Mapes was Larry King and it was bizarre. The crux of her arguement is that the nature of her story on the Bush National Guard Service cannot be disproved. This disregards, of course, any journalistic responsibility for accuracy in reporting. Most interesting was the follow-on panel consisting of the former President of the AP, David Gergan and Michael Medved, all of whom absolutely destroyed her. How do people like her even have the nerve to ever appear in public again?

-snip- Mr. Carlson vividly recalls how Ms. Mapes's social advocacy landed her in trouble in a major story. In the mid- and late 1980s, the Seattle police undertook a series of raids on well-known crack houses. In the winter of 1987, officers announced themselves and knocked on the door of a known Seattle drug den. They then heard some noise and forced themselves in when no one answered the door. A low-level drug dealer named Erdman Bascomb stood up with a dark, shiny object in his hand. An officer fired, Bascomb fell, and officers pounced on the "weapon": a black...

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...

Mary Mapes is madder than a rained-out rooster, as her former boss, Dan Rather, might say. Mapes, the CBS producer who lost her job over last year's "60 Minutes II" story about President Bush's National Guard service, resurfaces with a reconstruction of that incident that savages just about everyone associated with it: conservative bloggers, the mainstream media, CBS and its chief executive, Leslie Moonves, the Texas Air National Guard, even a few members of the Dallas Cowboys of the early 1970s. And that's just in the first 40 pages of Mapes's wonkishly named but compellingly told tale of a byzantine...

NEW YORK — The producer fired for her role in the discredited CBS News report about President George W. Bush's military service believes that CBS was more interested in protecting itself than finding out the truth behind her story. In an excerpt from her upcoming book, Mary Mapes wrote that "no one was happier" than executives at CBS owner Viacom to receive an independent panel's condemnation of her and three colleagues for their role in the September 2004 story on 60 Minutes II. Mapes contended that CBS and Viacom, which actively lobby in Washington on media ownership and decency standards,...

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...