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« November 06, 2005 - November 12, 2005 | Main
"Terrifying!" The Mapes Carnival Plays CNN
November 13, 2005 07:05 AM EST
This morning Howard Kurtz intereviewed Mary Mapes about Rathergate on CNN. Kurtz opened the interview by asking Mapes about the meltdown that imeediately followed the airing of the story built on the fraudulent documents:
Howard Kurtz: What was that experience like?
Mary Mapes: It was terrifying.
Terrifying? Only if being exposed as a sham is frightening.
Mapes also clung to her new narrative that those attacking the documents were "anonymous." This is completely bogus, given that Powerline led the charge and all three contributors there were and have always been public. Mapes' attempt to make herself a martyr is a laughable bit of bad drama, and real journalists ought not to allow her to play this role.
She asserted that "what happened to us was part of a larger part of the intimidation of the press" conducted by the Adminsitration. She also asserted that "there is something very odd about the first attack coming from a Republican lawyer in Atlanta." The implication is that Rove etc used an operative to discredit her fake documents. The question has to be asked: Is she this delusional/paranoid or is she willing to say anything to pump a book and land at some hard left alternative weekly?
Mapes also attacked Kurtz for his failure to understand what "authenticate" means and defended her "experts."
Howard Kurtz also said he still isn't taking a position on whether "these documents are real or fake." That's extraordinary. They are of course frauds, and everyone knows that who cares to look even briefly at the record.
UPDATE:
Powerline's Scott Johnson follws on Kurtz's show and shreds Mary Mapes' absurd fable by citing the Thornburg Report.
But CNN puts on opposite Johnson the Huffington Post's Eric Boehlert, a harsh Bush critic who wants to still prove that Bush didn't serve his TANG time, which means CNN thinks it is fair to give Mary Mapes an easy two segments, to have as host a self-described agnostic on the fake documents, and to oppose the only skeptic of the Mapes' myth with a Bush critic.
That's journalism! Keep in mind that there is no reasonable defense of the documents as other than bad fakes.
Up next: The Texas oilmen conspiracy to kill Kennedy!
