Posted on 11/01/2005 9:38:05 PM PST by freespirited
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 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-published 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."
In a statement released Monday, CBS News said: "Mary Mapes' actions damaged CBS News as an organization and brought pain to many colleagues with whom she worked. As always, revisionist history must be tested against the facts." It pointed to its independent panel's 200-page report, adding: "We believe those facts speak for themselves."
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 headline 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 "---- 'em 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.
After 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 committee 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 cannot 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.
My fav comment re this, via Powerline:
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011808.php#011808
"...she says that critics of her television program talked about "peripheral spacing"... This is astonishing...that after a year, Mapes still doesn't know that "proportional spacing" is what we and many other bloggers discussed..."
Does this woman not have a single friend willing to take her aside? I mean, I love bashing the ignorant arrogant MSM as much as anyone, but its almost cruel to let her keep talking.
Does Mary believe that the pain she has received as a result of the exposure of the attempt to use a forgery to defame a Pesident is of much more import than the crime itself? (Is she a leftist?)
Doesn't Tim Russert's wife work for Vanity Fair?
Doesn't Tim Russert's wife work for Vanity Fair?
Maureen Orth, sure does.
Wow.. Timmy's wife picks up all the has-beens for the mag, huh? First Wilson and now Mapes.
Talk to the hand Mapes, you Communist moonbat.
"Wow.. Timmy's wife picks up all the has-beens for the mag, huh? First Wilson and now Mapes."
What we call 'has-beens', the left calls 'heroes': the more you screw up, fail, and break laws, then the higher your stature becomes in the Democratic Party.
But, it is kinda fun to see them turning on each other; i.e. CBS-Mapes & NY Slimes-Judith Miller.
We ain't seen nothin' yet :-)
Kinda reminds one of a child molester trying to make their depravity more palatable, doesn't it?
bttt
And if things were reversed, they would show mercy?
How is a news story a "success". What would have made the story a failure?
Here, I thought that the news was supposed to be an accounting of the facts, not a success. Gives away the agenda, doesn't it?
I'm with you on that... just hope my blood pressure can hold out through '08.
bttt
"And if things were reversed, they would show mercy?"
Of coruse not. I just find it interesting that none of Mape's collegues can get her to shut up. She's an embarrasment to herself and to the journalistic "profession" - although its becoming more evident that she is the standard, not the exception.
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