The Mary Mapes Book

In their Press Room feature, Vanity Fair.com looks at Mary Mapes, whom they describe as the “CBS News producer who was fired this year after documents in a 60 Minutes II exposé on President Bush’s National Guard service came under intense scrutiny.” More specifically, at an excerpt from her new book, Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power (St. Martin’s).

read on…

She still claims that her docs were legit:

Mapes has recently reviewed documents culled by a private researcher who went to the Texas National Guard headquarters, as well as various archives and libraries across the U.S., and she reports that they include right-hand signature blocks, odd abbreviations, and other characteristics that were used to dismiss the Killian memos.

Let’s see it, Mary.

Mapes maintains that she told CBS all along that she could not authenticate the documents 100%. [CBS claims that Mapes assured them that there were no problems with the documents.]

If she told CBS that the documents might be fakes, as she claims, then why did she use them in the “exposé”? One doesn’t take that chance when the stakes are as high as a Presidential election.

Mapes believes that the panel attacked the story and the producers, rather than try and uncover the truth. In the end, she feels the report they prepared read more like a prosecutorial brief than the results of an independent investigation.

Mary, the docs were fake. It is not relevant if what was contained in the fake documents was true. There is nothing but fake documentation to back up those wild charges.

There more at the site linked above, all equally as specious, and I get the impression that the Mapes book reads like an amateurish list of talking points for her defenders. Wherever or whatever they are. Her best defense, and the best thing for her psyche, would be for her to simply admit what happened.

It takes… COURAGE… Mary.