O'Reilly was way too soft on her, but he did drag out one telling admission. O'Reilly told her where she went wrong was not proving the documents beyond a reasonable doubt. Mapes responded by saying she believed them to be accurate beyond a reasonable doubt.
And that, in a nutshell, is how the modern liberal mind works. Their beliefs trump overwhelming evidence to the contrary, which is why Mapes refuses to admit the evidence is overwhelming that the memos are fakes. She clings to the one-in-a-trillion possibility that an officer with very limited typing skills would use an extremely advanced typewriter requiring advanced training and elaborate setup to create photo-ready quality text - for minor personnel memos destined for his own personal files. THAT is what Mapes believes and demands that others believe.
And Mapes casually restated that she had been pursuing the story for four years. That shows an Ahab-like fixation on getting Bush. Her bosses should have taken that as a warning signal that Mapes was way too personally involved and invested in the story - which led her to reject any feedback that the memos were forgeries.
Oh, and you left out in your analysis of the one in a trillion odds, the fact that you could recreate the document pixel for pixel by using the default settings in M$ Werd.
I wish I had the direct quote but a few days ago when Mapes was asked point blank if it was her responsibility to prove they were accurate instead of others to prove they were false, she said (paraphrasing) "no, I don't think so."
Mary Mapes and Dan Rather both had a personal type vendetta mindset where Bush was concerned. The bad blood between Bush and Rather went back to the Bush 41 presidency. This was all about getting GWB ... their reckless compulsion to do so backfired and both Rather and Mapes have trashed their reputation as journalists.