Mapes: “i was an idiot”

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Last updated on July 27th, 2017 at 01:09 pm

Ex-CBS producer Mary Mapes, fired after her Rathergate role was exposed, complains in a book extract published by Vanity Fair:

“If I was an idiot, it was for believing in a free press that is able to do its job without fear or favor.”

She was an idiot for believing she could do her job without facts.

”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.”

And her ill-researched attack on Bush was … what, exactly? Mapes’ soon-to-be-published book, by the way, is entitled Truth and Duty. Which leaves the field so wide-open for jokes that at the moment I can’t think of any.

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.”

At last—the mystery of “document expert” Bill Glennon is explained!

Posted by Tim B. on 11/02/2005 at 11:39 AM
    1. If I was an idiot, it was for believing in a free press that is able to do its job without fear or favor.

      Well, she got part of that right, anyway.

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2005 11 02 at 01:00 PM • permalink

 

    1. Mapes was an idiot for thinking we couldn’t figure out the truth.

      Except that the source is an idiot, her words ,”…the attack…was…as effective as a brilliantly run…campaign…” would be a high compliment to Charles Johnson, the Powerline guys and all the others who exposed her.

      Pity she’s going to make money on that book.

      Posted by Retread on 2005 11 02 at 01:22 PM • permalink

 

    1. Tim –

      You can’t think of any jokes because the title is beyond parody!

      Posted by Parker on 2005 11 02 at 01:24 PM • permalink

 

    1. wayback machine:

      I was waiting for heads to roll at CBS,now I believe that this stonewalling will continue and get worse till the election is over. After which it will all be forgotten.
      Posted by: gubbaboy at September 14, 2004 at 08:30 AM

      Y’got it half right, Gub.

      Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 11 02 at 01:45 PM • permalink

 

    1. Finally, she details how in that probe the question of how “liberal” she was became paramount.

      Sure it did.  Because the news show was supposed to be “news”, not a Democratic Party campaign commercial.  As a producer of a news show, it was paramount that her objectivity was beyond reproach.  Not only did she fell far short of that standard, she was shown to be nothing more than a Democrat banner bearer.  In turn, that raised the question that if Mary Mapes is subjectively concocting false stories in favor of a political party, how much of the news is similarly created?

      She has only her radically liberal ideology, a biased judgment, and a startling lack of professionalism to blame for this debacle and the subsequent wholesale questioning of the legitimacy of the MSM.

      Posted by wronwright on 2005 11 02 at 01:47 PM • permalink

 

    1. I hear from sources in the publishing industry that the original title was to have been, “Truth and Duty . . . Not!”, but this posed certain problems from a marketing angle, and there were also concerns that the book might be mistaken for something by Al Franken. Then they considered “Truth and Beauty”, but figured that Mary’s picture would look incongruous on the dust jacket. So they finally settled on “Truth and Duty”, shooting for the Joe Wilson moonbat segment of the market.

      Posted by paco on 2005 11 02 at 02:16 PM • permalink

 

    1. You can’t think of any jokes because the title is beyond parody!
      Oh, hell, I’ll give it a try, how about:

      Truth and Doody.

      Sorry.

      I never quite got over the third grade-level pee pee and poo poo jokes.

      Posted by helltoupee on 2005 11 02 at 02:42 PM • permalink

 

    1. If I may raise the tone a bit: Poop and Doodie!

      Posted by Jim Treacher on 2005 11 02 at 02:43 PM • permalink

 

    1. She even got the title wrong. It should have been:

      MAPES: “I AM AN IDIOT”

      Posted by ErnieG on 2005 11 02 at 02:46 PM • permalink

 

    1. Gah, just missed it.

      Posted by Jim Treacher on 2005 11 02 at 02:46 PM • permalink

 

    1. So Mapes is living in McCarthy’s America, because she was asked if she was a liberal?  If Mapes is anything like her Australian counterparts, she presumably never lets anyone from the Right anywhere near a microphone or camera until she has comprehensively pre-branded them as “member of a right wing think-tank”, “conservative spokesman” etc., as a mental health advisory for her viewers.

      Posted by cuckoo on 2005 11 02 at 04:33 PM • permalink

 

    1. And as for the title, how about:
      “I’m Mary Mapes and I’m reporting for Truth and Duty!”

      Posted by cuckoo on 2005 11 02 at 04:35 PM • permalink

 

    1. Still, none of the suggested titles are funnier than the original!

      (although some are worthy in their own right…)

      Posted by Parker on 2005 11 02 at 04:44 PM • permalink

 

    1. What I don’t get—with Mary Mapes excerpting the document forgery-related parts of her book in any forum that will run it, who is going to buy the actual book when it comes out? Is there any other part of Mary Mapes’ life that anyone cares about?

      Posted by Otter on 2005 11 02 at 04:47 PM • permalink

 

    1. Vanity Fair -a good title for the printer of this pernicious stuff.
      Mapes and Bill Glennon are the descendants of those who convinced the world of the genuineness of ‘The Protocols of The Elders of Zion’.

      Posted by Barrie on 2005 11 02 at 05:43 PM • permalink

 

    1. It would take a 15-ton bottle jack to get my jaw off the floor at this display of arrogance.

      Posted by Dave S. on 2005 11 02 at 06:35 PM • permalink

 

    1. #11 – excellent point, cuckoo. Game, set, match.

      (Yes, the Yank media does the same thing.)

      Posted by Dave S. on 2005 11 02 at 06:36 PM • permalink

 

    1. Mapes had the choice between Truth and Duty. She chose Duty, and got shitkicked by the Truth anyway.

      Posted by Tatterdemalian on 2005 11 02 at 06:51 PM • permalink

 

    1. At least, when Mapes’ book is turned into a musical, we already have a title: The Pajama Game

      Posted by cuckoo on 2005 11 02 at 06:55 PM • permalink

 

    1. Margo Kingston has a prime investment opportunity for Mary Mapes.

      Posted by PW on 2005 11 02 at 07:38 PM • permalink

 

    1. I wonder if Mapes considers herself a “senior” journalist. We all know what happened to the last middle-aged menopausal moonbat that claimed truth to power.

      Magrok.

      Posted by CB on 2005 11 03 at 12:44 AM • permalink

 

    1. “Ill-researched”… wow, that’s so much more nonconfrontational than “willfully fraudulent.”

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 11 03 at 02:32 AM • permalink

 

    1. #5 – wronwright has nailed it.

      Posted by blogstrop on 2005 11 03 at 02:49 AM • permalink

 

    1. “If I was an idiot, it was for believing….
      IF ????

      Posted by TonyP on 2005 11 03 at 04:11 AM • permalink

 

    1. Ms Mapes, permit me to do a bit of editing, you’re statement above should read, I am now and always have been an idiot, and as God is my witness, I shall continue to be an idiot until I have achieved room temperature.

      Mr. Glennon was very entertaining.

      Putting aside for a moment whether or not the typewriter in question could duplicate the memo in question,  I wish Glennon would have elaborated a bit on how and why he thinks an expensive specially designed IBM Selectric mostly ordered by law firms, would have found its way to an outpost office of the Texas National Guard, and what he thinks are the chances that a typist could be found there who understood how to get it to produce said memo, and more importantly, why would anyone go through so much trouble and expense to produce a memo that would so exactly mirror one that could be produced by a word processing program installed on a computer that wasn’t even a gleam in Mr. Gates eye in 1974.

      Posted by blerp on 2005 11 03 at 08:32 AM • permalink

 

    1. Doesn’t she undermine her defence by telling us that Dan Rather signed off his emails with “FEA [F—K ‘em all]”. Which is sort of what the whole furore was about, wasn’t it?

      Posted by Hanyu on 2005 11 03 at 09:25 AM • permalink

 

    1. Mary Mapes, “I’m a drooling idiot. Did Dan take my bib and my cup?”

      Posted by Abu Qa’Qa on 2005 11 03 at 11:43 AM • permalink

 

    1. Had she only read “The Idiots Guide to Document Forgeries” she might have “prevailed”.

      As for Mapes herself, the “Idiots Guide to Idiots” states “once and idiot, always an idiot”.

      Posted by Dorian on 2005 11 03 at 06:58 PM • permalink

 

    1. Truth and Duty

      Once again, the media is beyond parody.

      Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2005 11 03 at 08:35 PM • permalink

 

    1. # 27 Dan igt have taken the bib, but didn’t we see Sean Penn in NO wit the cup???

      Posted by TonyP on 2005 11 03 at 09:15 PM • permalink

 

    1. “I was an idiot”

      Fake but accurate

      Posted by Ursus on 2005 11 03 at 09:37 PM • permalink

 

    1. Any idiot who has ever used a typerwritter and Microsoft Word can tell the difference between a document made on one and the other. On the other hand, this same group of people had Clinton red-handed on the Lewinsky story andthey choose to sit on it until Drudge busted it. It’s amazing how the burden of proof changes depending on who is in the White House.

      How stupid and ignorant do you have to be to believe her or any of this?

      Posted by JohnFNWayne on 2005 11 03 at 10:31 PM • permalink

 

    1. Eyewash and Idiots?

      Posted by crash on 2005 11 04 at 03:02 AM • permalink

 

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