Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power

Ms. Mapes is an excellent writer. I couldn't put the book down. Of course, I would expect nothing less from a successful television news producer/reporter with over 25 years of award-winning experience under her belt. A career that includes the breaking of the history-changing story of the Abu Ghraib prison torture for which she won a Peabody Award. The book is witty and amusing, yet also completely honest. Something President Bush has never been with regard to his truncated National Guard service. I am a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. Upon graduation I was committed to serve my country for five long years as a nuclear submarine officer. Five years. Six deterrent nuclear submarine patrols. 1,826.21099 days of dedicated service. Not one day, not one hour less. I did not have the option to skip town a year or two early with the excuse that I needed to work on some political campaign. I would have been punished for going AWOL. I was completely accountable for my military service commitment. Mr. Bush was not held accountable. He somehow served his country significantly less than required. This is the crux of Ms. Mapes story on CBS. Yet, instead of focusing on THIS story, the right-wing bloggers and conservative spin doctors spent HUGE amounts of time and money discussing typewriters and fonts. Such diversionary tactics make me disheartened and angry. Ms. Mapes also does an excellent job of describing the way she was completely abused by her employers, put on some ridiculous mock trial facilitated by an inappropriate, biased investigation team comprised of people with absolutely no television news experience. She was then very publicly fired such that she was basically the sole scapegoat for this entire debacle. As if Ms. Mapes single-handedly wrote, produced and aired this National Guard story completely by herself...without any supervision, CBS news organization/team, or leadership. In my books, Ms. Mapes is the hero when it comes to seeking the truth and doing her duty. And the current President Bush and his minions are ever the cover-up artists. Covering up the truth and side-stepping their duty. This has been proven time and time again to be the case. So sad. I know Ms. Mapes will land on her feet and may she continue to seek the truth and hold our government leaders accountable for their words and actions.

It is amazing to me that in the lead up to the 2004 elections that the events described by Mrs. Mapes took place. It frightens me to think that the right wing media machine can obfuscate, lie, and throw mud until a legitimate story is rendered questionable. In fact, the story itself was never questioned; only the documents. Has America become a place where the people can't think anymore? Does it not bother the American people that a man wounded three times in Vietnam is slandered by the minions of a man who shirked even his stateside duty? I hope we can someday be the country of morals, heroes, and cooperation rather than the land of torture, corruption, and propaganda. Thank you Mary Mapes for being a true American patriot. We need to hear our story, even when it is hard to hear.

Mary Mapes was an award-winning television news producer and reporter for 25 years. This is her story about the report on George W. Bush's dereliction of his National Guard duty. The reporters who write the stories seldom become the story. This book tells what it is like in TV news. What I learned from this book is the NEED for breaking up the news media monopolies. What did you learn? Chapter 1 begins with her acclaimed story on "60 Minutes" about George W. Bush's Air National Guard career. The documents meshed with official records, and had been analyzed by a document analyst. These copies could not be 100% tested as to ink and paper (p.3). But soon after the congratulations things began to change with rumors that the documents were forged (p.6)! How could these long treatises be published so quickly (p.7)? These criticisms were anonymous, real analysts used their names. Copying documents introduce changes that can be seen whenever you make a copy of a copy (p.8). Mapes says criticism of CBS came from those blinded by their bias (p.9) [you may hear examples on your local talk radio show]. This fact is shown by the attacks on former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes (p.10). Mapes was shocked by the attacks on CBS (p.13). There was the problem of Gen Bobby Hodges, who had corroborated the content of the documents but who now thought they were forgeries (p.14). The complaint of CBS News President Andrew Heyward hurt their morale (p.16). Poor Mary was terrified by the complaints (p.16). Could she have really been that naive about politics (p.18)? Certainly the words of Les Moonves didn't help (p.19). Mary correctly contrasts the treatment of Kerry and McCain. Mary gives her personal background (p.20). [I wonder how many of her critics can meet her standards?] Didn't Mary ever hear about the messenger with bad news being shot (p.23)? There are problems with this book. The biggest is her maudlin emotions over her job loss. Didn't she learn nothing in 15 years at CBS? [Bernard Goldberg comes to mind.] The table of contents lacks chapter descriptions. I didn't mind the sometimes rambling writing, but a better edited book would be quicker reading yet make the same points. Mary does this well in describing the "independent" investigative panel (p.25). Also the Viacom media monopoly (p.26). Could this story have been the payback for her expose of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal (p.26)? The vast right-wing attack on her suggests a conspiracy (p.28). Mary does criticize "the superficial nature of daily news reporting" (p.29). "Newspapers weren't much better." [Is this caused by the loss of middle class businesses or Journalism schools or media mismanagement?] Does Mary really believe in some golden glorious past when journalists sought and wrote The Truth (p.30)? Wasn't that when there was competition? What did she study in college? I'm sure there is a long hidden history of reporters sabotaged by deliberately planted false stories. Prevention is in not using

Unlike many of the "reviewers" on this Web site, I have read Mary Mapes' book and it is excellent. All concerned Americans should read this book which tells the story of the CBS "Documents Scandal" from the perspective of the CBS 60 Minutes II producer who lived it. For those who do not have an anti-CBS or Dan Rather agenda and who read this with an effort to get the truth rather than the hate-filled rhetoric of a partisan right-wing blogger, you will come away with a lot of respect for Mapes. She was a hard-working, dedicated, and professional journalist. She had award winning programs to her credit with the Abu Ghraib story and the sensitive, warm story of Senator Strom Thurmond's illegitimate bi-racial daughter. Her bravery got her into Watts to cover the Rodney King story and her story to find out the truth about George W. Bush's service or lack thereof in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War got her fired. Not because she didn't tell the truth...she got a former Lt. Governor of Texas to admit he had used his influence to get Bush a slot in the guard unit when others could not get in. She got the secretary of Bush's commanding officer to verify that the information in the questioned documents was correct regarding the situation with Bush's failure to take his flight physical and the pressure brought to bear on Bush's commander to give him an outstanding officer rating when he did not deserve one. Her confirmations of these facts went unnoticed in the hail storm of hatefilled partisan blogs written by GOP operatives and partisan hacks who wanted to kill the story. Anyone who understands the Bush administration's lack of respect for honesty and fairness will quickly see where the attacks on Mapes began and from where they were directed. They will also see that CBS out of fear of the Bush administration was willing to throw an award winning producer to the wolves and thereby give credence to the partisan bloggers and Internet liars that they did not deserve. Mapes was more loyal to CBS and to Dan Rather than they were to her, although Rather has had nothing but praise for her. If you do not come away from this book fearing for a free and independent press, uncontrolled by the government, and with a better appreciation of how the Bush Administration controls the press in this country, then you need to search your reasoning ability for a lack of objectivity and chalk it up to the kind of partisan hatred that is dividing this country in a very dangerous way! Mary Mapes made some mistakes but NO ONE HAS YET PROVED THE DOCUMENTS WERE FAKES! Many of the claims made by the bloggers have proved to be wrong and misleading. Many of the bloggers had an agenda and a mission to destroy CBSand Dan Rather and they almost succeeded. Instead, Mary Mapes has suffered unfairly for telling the Truth! Remember that and remember that she found people to substantiate the information contained in the documents. Who do you really believe? Read her book an

This is a pretty darn good read. The woman can write and she isn't afraid to dish it out. But, lord, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I looked at the images of the flight suspension memo in Appendix 1. The one on the left is the unfaxed version they were looking at at CBS; on the right is the one the rest of us have been poring over. Thousands of blogging hours have been spent analyzing and yakking about the cruddy output of fax machines. (Oddly, the truthandduty website uses the faxed versions of the memos. How come?)