It's a Scandal, All Right - By: Mary Mapes

[kpete]

March 31, 2008
It's a Scandal, All Right
Mary Mapes

...........

In the years since three other producers and I lost our jobs and Dan Rather was hustled out the door at CBS for broadcasting a report on George W. Bush's abortive National Guard service, a sloppy shorthand has set in about our story. The documents were demonstrably false, we were careless in using them and the heroic investigative journalists of the right-wing website set saved the day.

Blah, blah, blah.

............

The greatest fraud perpetrated in modern journalistic history was the Bush Administration's linking of Iraq to September 11. The biggest forgery foisted on the media was the Niger documents claiming that Saddam Hussein was seeking yellowcake to be used in nuclear weapons. One of the biggest media mistakes of my generation was for reporters to blindly trust President George W. Bush, a man who had never been to war, never fulfilled his own military duty and never met a predicament his parents couldn't get him out of.

And the ultimate failing by our media was to unquestioningly allow this man to lead this country into a war for reasons that are still unclear, without the number of soldiers needed to do the job, without the gear needed to protect them and without a clue about how the hell we would get out once we got in.

................

Now that, my friends, is a media scandal.

more at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080414/mapes

[rateyes]

1. kr

[SpiralHawk]

2. "In their shrunken hearts, even Freepers know she is right. Smirk." - Commander AWOL

[UTUSN]

3. K&R n/t

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

4. The damage caused by BushCo's fraud against the U.S. is mind-boggling!

The media's complicity is and was a blatant violation of public trust.

[CTyankee]

5. Excellent article. Mapes' book about her ordeal is also very good.

She has presented a great analysis of what happened to her, linked to whathas happened in our country. The people I truly despise in all this are the media "experts" that ganged up against her and Dan Rather. I loathe each and every one of them for helping Bush destroy this country.

[mirrera]

6. The book was excellent! I agree... n/t

[ellenfl]

7. what gets me are the bushbots

who are now called 'experts' on cnn, msnbc, etc. . . . like ken blackwell and armstrong williams. whenever they show up on tv, i change channels. they have NO credibility. how can they be shilled as 'experts'?

ellen fl

[specimenfred1984]

8. It's all Hillary's fault right?

For being a member of PNAC as you pointed out a few days ago right?

[blm]

9. What would be fair to say is that the Clintons did not USE their credibility with American people

to even try and convince them that they were being rushed into war on flimsy evidence that Clinton as president would have had greater access to the fuller evidence files than any senator or congressman did.

Bill Clinton DID use his cache and his persuasive talents with other Dem lawmakers and in the the media for the American people to further Bush's war decisions.