Fraters Libertas

Queen of De Nile

This morning, I had the opportunity to catch Mary Mapes and John Hinderaker square off on the Hot Talk with Scott Hennen show on Fargo's WDAY. It was riveting and revealing radio as Mapes and Hinderaker exchanged blows over the largely discredited Bush National Guard story and the forged documents that got Mapes canned from CBS. John has provided a brief synopsis of the show here:

Wow, that was quite an experience. Ms. Mapes is a real piece of work. If you wanted to sue on behalf of all the people she slandered in the course of a half-hour, you'd have to start a class action. She sticks doggedly to her belief that it is "quite possible that Bill Burkett is finally telling the truth." Setting new standards in journalism: let's run with it, it's quite possibly true!

In this case, of course, the story didn't even meet that standard.

He's right in that Mapes is indeed a real piece of something. For someone who had recently been humiliated and disgraced in front of a national audience, she came across as incredibly arrogant and condescending. Here's a recap of her main talking points:

1. Unlike John and other conservative bloggers who are "radical right wing extremists" and "Republican operatives", she doesn't have a partisan bone in her body. She's merely a humble and noble reporter in a quest for the Holy Grail of the "truth."

2. No one has ever been able to prove that the documents are not real.

3. Anyone involved in the story who is a Democrat or who hates Bush is telling the truth. Anyone involved in the story who has an remote connection to the Republican Party or has the slightest amount of respect and admiration for Bush is lying.

4. Because John has not read her book "Truth and Duty," he has no right to comment on the story. (John pointed out the he wasn't appearing on the show to discuss her book, but rather the report that CBS aired last year. It didn't stop her from going back to this well again and again.)

5. Because Power Line was wrong about the Terry Schiavo memos, they were also wrong about the National Guard documents.

An easy way to discern when one side is losing an argument is when they attempt to change the subject. It couldn't have been more than FIVE MINUTES into the show before Mapes was grasping for the Schiavo memo straw. Rather than trying to defend her case for the validity of the TANG docs and story, she was trying to switch the focus to the Schiavo memos which had nothing to do with why she and John were appearing on the radio together.

Of course the manner in which Power Line dealt with the Schiavo memo story and the way that Mapes has dealt with the TANG story are almost polar opposites. Once it became apparent that the Schiavo memo was not a Democratic dirty trick, the Power Lines boys accepted the facts as they were and moved on. Mapes meanwhile, continues to stubbornly cling to evidence and a storyline long ago rejected by reasonable, clear-thinking people. Perhaps Mapes would be better served if her next book were a novel. She seems to have a quite a rich fantasy life.