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Shocked, Mapes Stands By Her Story

Mary Mapes, former producer of the scandalous CBS Bush-Guard Story, has released a public response to an independent panel's review and report, stating, "I am shocked by the vitriolic scape-goating in Les Moonves’s statement." Among her more optimistic claims is an insistence that the CBS Memos are accurate. She writes that the documents were "thoroughly examined and corroborated" and that the "contents of the new documents mesh perfectly, in large ways and small, with all previously known records." Further, she notes "the panel did not conclude that these documents are false."

However, the panel's report contradicts this statement by using Mapes own interview notes from 1999. On Page 56, the report states, "Significanly, Mapes indicated in the April 1999 e-mail that she had been informed that there was no waiting list of President Bush’s TexANG unit at the time he entered." Without a waiting list it would have been difficult for Bush to receive special treatment to get into the Texas Air National Guard. The report lists several individuals, including Bush’s commanding officers, whom Mapes interviewed that said Bush did not get special treatment. In addition, no document was ever produced, apart from those in question, that indicated Bush received special treatment.

The report states that before the airing of the broadcast two document experts expressed concern over the authenticity of the memos and “all four of the examiners told the Panel that they informed Mapes and Miller that they could not authenticate the documents, primarily because they were copies.”

Finally, while the panel did not prove that the Killian Memos' are fake, it did list many serious characteristics of the memos that are inconsistent with authenticity.

After blaming her superiors, Mapes concludes,

I believe the segment presented to the American people facts they were free to accept or reject, and that as those facts were presented, there was nothing that was false or misleading. .

Her statement is amazing considering CBS' prior (minimal) admission of error and the vast body of evidence that now exists showing the story was riddled with errors and inconsistencies.

HT: Powerline

Update: More from SenescentMan and Captain's Quarters.

Posted by tim at January 11, 2005 1:00 AM

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