Mary Mapes Hits Bloggers and MSM in Upcoming Book--But What's With the Kurtz Excerpts? (Book Gone)

Editor & Publisher ^ | October, 7, 2005 | E&P Staff

[PJ-Comix]

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 the attack. I was terrified at CBS's lack of preparedness in defending us. I was furious at the unrelenting attacks on Dan. And I was helpless to do anything about any of it."

He said he had drawn the brief excerpts from the first chapter, which had been posted (as sometimes happens with new books) at amazon.com. He also provided a link. But the link goes to a dead Amazon page. In fact, the book (which is due out on Nov. 8) seems to have disappeared completely from Amazon, except for its audio version (Mapes narrates herself).

Barnes and Noble still has the book, which is cazled “Truth and Duty, “ online, with the Nov. 8 pub date (and no excerpt). The book is still featured at the site of the publisher, St. Martin's Press, which promises an excerpt-but not until pub day.

Calls to a publicist at St. Martin's have not yet been returned.

One clue in the mystery is that Kurtz writes that he had been meaning to get to this item “for some time,” so perhaps the excerpt got pulled a few days ago. But it doesn't explain why the entire book has gone missing at Amazon.

Among the excerpts quoted by Kurtz:

-- “And right now, on the Internet, it appeared everything was falling apart. I had a real physical reaction as I read the angry online accounts. It was something between a panic attack, a heart attack, and a nervous breakdown. My palms were sweaty; I gulped and tried to breathe. . . . The little girl in me wanted to crouch and hide behind the door and cry my eyes out."

--"Faxing changes a document in so many ways, large and small, that analyzing a memo that had been faxed -- -in some cases not once, but twice -- -was virtually impossible. The faxing destroyed the subtle arcs and lines in the letters. The characters bled into each other. The details of how the typed characters failed to line up perfectly inside each word were lost."

--"To these people, there was no such thing as unbiased mainstream reporting, certainly not when it came to criticism of the president, no matter how tepid. To them, there was Fox News and everything else -- and everything else was liberal and unfair."

[Incorrigible]

I'm glad you saved those excerpts here PJ.  Something tells me there's going to be a lot of last minute editing on that chapter.  Not the least of which will be changing "peripheral" fonts to "proportional" fonts; an error that shouldn't have gotten through monkey for an editor.  I'm not sure about the timeframe issues for Buckhead's post though.  Changing that to indicate he posted his analysis 2 hours after the 60 minutes show would undermine her whole theory that Karl Rove told us what to say about the memo.

None-the-less, I'm sure the book will be a laugh riot when it comes out and will dig her grave even deeper.

[metesky]

mmapes

Since November 2, 2004

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[Always Right]

Proportional spacing doesn't change just because it's faxed you ding-a-ling. It doesn't need to be "analyzed" because it's an obvious forgery.

It is a dubious argument anyways. If faxed documents distorts the document so severely that you can't verify it, then why bother trying to verify a signature of the faxed document. You get dizzy trying to follow the logic of this loser. She should have demanded the original document before airing the story, if she really had integrity. Not some faxed copy from a dubious source with an axe to grind.

[adgirl]

" I think the next story they were going to fabricate was the reason why W wanted to avoid the physical -- to avoid detection of cocaine use."

But there again, I think she's assuming today's technology was available to test for drugs and that it was done routinely. Was it? I was under the impression that one of the first pioneers of the really reliable drug testing kits was SYVA and they weren't around until the mid 70s like 75? I could be wrong.

[an amused spectator]

Barnes and Noble still has the book, which is cazled “Truth and Duty,“

I think you may have just invented a new FR word, PJ. ;-)

How you got the "z" in there, I'll never know. Did you FAX your post to yourself 40 or 50 times, perhaps?

[PJ-Comix]

As a "hyperconservative" who has "manipulated the Internet" (by googling her name and book title), the first chapter of the Mapes book has now been embargoed until November 8. This is probably because Mary Mapes has promised to appear on 20/20 and Larry King Live.

AHEM! The ONLY place where you can now read the COMPLETE book excerpt is now in the DUmmie FUnnies. Please take note all you reporters and book reviewers out there who want a heads up on the lame and laughable excuses conjured up by Mary Mapes in her book.

[Charles Henrickson]

Does faxing change an "l" to a "z," or is "cazled" some sort of Snoop Diggety-Dogg word?

[PJ-Comix]

I'm glad you saved those excerpts here PJ. Something tells me there's going to be a lot of last minute editing on that chapter. Not the least of which will be changing "peripheral" fonts to "proportional" fonts; an error that shouldn't have gotten through monkey for an editor.

CORRECT! I think there might be other changes as well. However, her ORIGINAL excerpt has been preserved for posterity in the DUmmie FUnnies.

[mcenedo]

Mary was stunned that anyone would even question Dan (and herself), especially considering the documents came such a credible source. (/sarcasm)

[PJ-Comix]

FLASH!!! STOP THE PRESSES!!! This E&P story is now featured in the DRUDGE REPORT under the title of: "MAPES 'RATHERGATE' BOOK AWOL FROM AMAZON..."

[ElPatriota]

I gulped and tried to breathe. . . . Isn't that pretty much how Hillary described her [fake] reaction when Bill [allegedly] finally told her Monica really was delivering BJs with the pizza?

FUNNY, FUNNY, it brings images I can not say here but :)).... thanks for laugh

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Risible, pathetic. Clueless.

Please, Mary, for your own good, shut up.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I like my tagline better. (Who doesn't?)

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

ICUR1-2

[JustDoItAlways]

She is so EMOTIONAL. Every statement she made was about the emotional mess she felt.

That is one thing about left-wingers-Dems, like women, they think emotionally rather than logically/factually.

Reporters need to go back to their old roots of facts and double-confirmed sources.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Emotion notwithstanding, if CBS had promptly retracted the story, with Mary and Dan offering an apology to their viewers (if not to the President), they might both have jobs today. Their reaction to the story became the story; their reflexive defensiveness metathesized to devour them

The simple fact is that because of their institutional biases these supposed exemplars of the skeptical, world-wise, thoroughgoing press were had by a crude and artless hoax, that the average middle school teacher would have seen through.

There's no need to posit a vast conspiracy, Buckhead simply subjected the documents to the same healthy skepticism that an Eighth Grade teacher would have applied to a student's claim of losing a third grandmother.

Mary exhibited a very natural tendency to accept information that conformed to her desires and preconceived notions and reject information at variance. Whole industries are based on this particular human frailty. We are all susceptible to this temptation. Part of the process of maturation is learning to distinguish between wishful thinking and external reality. Healthy institutions learn to do this, to adapt. Those that do not are called, inter alia, CBS.

[steveyp]

Hi, Mary! You really are pathetic!

Grab a bag and breate into it.

[smith288]

Mapes is so weak on the "details" that she has even misspelled "Pajamahadeen"...

Fixed it for Mary.

[LIConFem]

What does Kurtz have to do with any of this?? ;o)