Posted on 09/19/2004 4:09:08 AM PDT by beyond the sea
..............In the years that CBS producer Mary Mapes has been pursuing this story, she never contacted Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's secretary, Marian Carr Knox, until after her existence was revealed by the Drudge Report. On 60 Minutes on Wednesday, Knox said that the documents were forgeries, but the content was accurate.
Mapes interviewed Killian's widow Marjorie Connell and his son Gary. Both expressed doubt to the CBS producer that the documents were real. Neither of them have appeared on the network nor even been mentioned in CBS's reporting.
CBS' own experts have moved away from the authenticity of the documents. One of the experts consulted was Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina. She told ABC News that she sent Mapes an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.
She said, "I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on Thursday if they ran that story."
If Rather was informed of the doubts, he ignored them, plunging his network into a quagmire. The veteran anchor forged ahead because, as he stated on Wednesday's broadcast, that the charges are so charges are so serious, the evidence of little importance.
His confidence in Mapes may have led him to go with the story, despite the red flags. After all, it was Mapes who brought CBS the Abu Ghraib photos of prisoner abuse and who risked jail by refusing to turn over videotapes of Rather's interview with a man charged in the 1998 dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper, Texas.
But Mapes' father sees a political agenda behind his daughter's work. Don Mapes, 76, was a recent guest on a radio talk show hosted by John Carlson on KVI in Seattle.
He said, "I'm really ashamed of what my daughter has become. She's a typical liberal. She went into journalism with an ax to grind, and that was to promote radical feminism."
He confessed to being disappointed in his daughter's role in the controversy. He said, "When I heard about 60 Minutes, I suspected she would be the producer of the show."
In an interview with Talon News, Don Mapes said his suspicion was because that he believed, "Dan Rather and she have been working on this ever since Bush was elected."
In commenting on the Wednesday's 60 Minutes show, he said, "It was a farce, it was fraud. I'm sorry as a father that my daughter was the producer of it."
His fatherly instinct showed through when he said, "To give her the benefit of the doubt, I believe she has been had."
But he also chastised his daughter for being intellectually dishonest.
He said, "She ought to look closer at George Soros or Michael Moore."
Mary Mapes declined several opportunities to comment for this article.
Its a pic of Mary Mapes
"Intellectually-dishonest liberal is like saying "cold ice" or "hot fire."
The members of the media brotherhood say Rather would never knowingly participate in perpetrating a fraud...
So he is only guilty of a Get Bush mindset,blind devotion to or falling in love with a story, extreme bias, blind devotion to the dem party, stupidity, careless unprofessional journalistic conduct,extreme arrogance,thinking the public is stupid?..Gee, that makes me feel better?
I must be blind.
In this instance, the opposite of oxymoron would be "TRUTH"
Friend Of Hillary?
Yep, I would believe it.
At least know her parents aren't to blame. But it's pretty surprising to see family members blow the whistle. Maybe it's like a "tough love" intervention. First the daughter of Barnes and now Mapes and her dad.
Father will be against daughter and daughter will be against father. I have not come to bring peace to the world.
I think these critical family members could be heros, interested in holiness more than family harmony.
Maybe the Vice President could learn from Alan Keyes on this matter.
Evidently the "liberal" agenda of family destruction ('The fatherland instead of the father') has taken hold in TX.
LOL!!! I almost spit my tea all over my computer when I read this! I have a daughter and was thinking along these lines, and feeling somewhat guilty about it. After your comment I feel somewhat vindicated in thinking this way.
He's still proud of his son, the piano player in the whorehouse.
Ben Barnes' own daughter has discredited him and now Ms Mapes' own father has discredited her! And you still have not aired Mr. Killian's widow's or son's views!
Dan, you can't lie and still be a good person like you have expressed before!
It doesn't work that way!
Get the smelling salts! I'm having an attack of the vapors!
If her parents are Pro-Life, then abortion was probably not an option.
"Whoever puts family before me is not worthy of me." --Jesus
Maybe she can spend Xmas with Ben whats-his-name since his daughter is also on the outs.
What I mean is that since they are never called on their bias (by each other), they get bolder and bolder. Finally, Dan and CBS go with a clear fraud ("for the greater good") and are blindsided by it. They brought it on themselves, and it is served up perfectly.
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