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September 22, 2004
The Long Knives Are Out for Mary MapesCBS News executives want to know why Mapes, one of Rather's most trusted producers, repeatedly assured them that both Bill Burkett and the documents he gave her could be trusted only to have both widely called into question by Internet bloggers and rival news organizations soon after 60 Minutes aired the story. On Monday, CBS said the story should have never run, and Rather apologized to viewers. As Joshua Micah Cougar Mellancamp Marshall would say: I question the timing of these leaks. He then offers an updated timeline for the DNCBS Rathergate mess in two parts. I don't want to say they're setting up Mary Mapes as a patsy, but my sources just informed me CBS is planning to move her through an underground police parking garage in Dallas, and that they plan on having fat guys in cowboy hats milling around when they do so. Fake But Accurate Update: Dan Rather responds to his critics. Dan Rather Retirement Watch Update: They're planning on making Mapes the fall-gal and claiming that Dan Rather was just a senile old barking-mad crank who wasn't responsible for the content of this story, which is half-true, of course. (The first half is true.) Will this work? I don't think so, but firing Mapes and claiming she was the Lando Calrissian on this Bespin betrayal will buy them some time-- some. We may have to wait for the ratings to fall below O'Reilly's to actually get justice-- Ace of Spades Justice. At the tone, the Dan Rather Retirement Watch displays a time of (bong) 11:56PM -- the watch clicks one minute back away from midnight Mary Mapes "I'm Just a Patsy" Watch Update: At the tone, the Mary Mapes "I'm Just a Patsy" Watch displays a time of (bong) 12:01AM -- one minute past midnight. She's already gone; the pinkslip is already in the interoffice mail-cart. Not Exactly A Ringing Endorsement Update: Last Tango hips me to a quote I missed: "CBS News spokeswoman Sandy Genelius... said that Mapes, 48, remains on CBS' payroll." "Remains on the payroll"? One can't help but notice the egregiously present-tense form of the verb. The present-tense here is just the polite form of the past-tense. In Latin, they call it the Pluperfect Patsy Tense, which is sometimes hard to distinguish from the Get Your Partisan Ass Working On Your Resume Tense. posted by Ace at 11:11 AM
CommentsWill Mary Mapes roll over on CBS and Dan Rather, be fired from CBS, spill her guts, attain the title of whistle blower and then make it big with her autobiography and talk circuit? Posted by: DelphiGuy on September 22, 2004 11:32 AM
Is it just me..or does anybody else see a resemblance to Eleanor Roosevelt? I'm just sayin.' Posted by: lauraw on September 22, 2004 11:50 AM
No doubt Mapes is worried; it's not promising that "CBS News spokeswoman Sandy Genelius... said that Mapes, 48, remains on CBS' payroll." "Remains on the payroll" is HR legalspeak. One suspects Chairman Moonves does not enjoy discovering that underlings have put him in the hotseat. Posted by: Lastango on September 22, 2004 11:53 AM
Oh- and I'm not a religious person, but I wanted to share this Inspiring Expression of Faith with you; "Everything they said about Bush is true; they just haven't found the evidence yet." - Dale Channer, 34, florist, the Bronx. This man has been SAVED, from the pesky fetters of empirical evidence. Posted by: lauraw on September 22, 2004 11:53 AM
My Guess; Mapes is the second line scapegoat (Burkett being the first, of course) in a damage control effort by KE04. Their line is that nutcase Burkett forged the docs and used them as bait to entice Mapes to get him into contact with KE04. That way, then, the extent of KE04's involvement is the phone call from Lockhart to Burkett. Of course that leaves unanswered questions about the coordination of the AWOL media campaign, as well as evidence that KE04 had the memos by April. But the memos aren't important; the important thing is Bush's failed Iraq war and by the way Bush liiieeed. Posted by: Thales on September 22, 2004 12:12 PM
Ace, I think you're correct, Rather just bought himself another minute or three on the retirement watch. This, despite Rather being quoted yesterday that he does not believe the memos to be forgeries! Wow. And yes, I think Thales is also correct. Mapes and Burkett will be offered for sacrifice by the DNCBS Central Committee. This of course assumes that Mapes and Burkett will drink the Kool-Aid offered them. This is a huge gamble for the DNCBS, also assuming that neither Congress or a truly independent agency ever investigates this with the power of subpoena. Posted by: MeTooThen on September 22, 2004 12:27 PM
I question the timing of SeeBS's leaking of her age. Posted by: Enas Yorl on September 22, 2004 02:47 PM
Hey, I had this crap by 3am, along with this article. Posted by: Joe R. the Unabrewer on September 22, 2004 05:11 PM
"Pluperfect Patsy Tense" Yeah, my homeschooling kid will have been working on that for a week starting tomorrow. Kind of tricky. Posted by: SarahW on September 22, 2004 05:17 PM
Fox is reporting Mapes got in serious trouble 3 years ago for offering a white supremacist in prison a deal in exchange for an interview. She was banned from ever going into Federal Prisons again for interviews after her stunt. The quid pro quo was she would take give the inmate a CBS address he could write a priveledged letter to (prison staff can't open letters directed to lawyers or official media), then she would mail the letter to another white supremacist at another prison under the "priviledged" status of a CBS media letter that can't be opened. Prison staff surrupticiously (but legally) monitoring her conversation with the convict uncovered the plot. A letter of banning and admonition was written to her and her CBS supervisors. (Not inc. Dan, but another high exec guy who has been defending Mapes as a super ethical reporter in all the MSM was identified. Posted by: Cedarford on September 22, 2004 07:24 PM
Cedarford-- I did a story on a work-release center years ago. For some reason, an inmate decided to tell me his woes one afternoon, how life at the center was unfair, etc. I felt sorry for him. The next day the warden asked me why I was talking to the guy. The whole place was bugged. Now that was when I was in college, age 22. Presumably Mapes would know better at age 45. Guess not. Posted by: Fresh Air on September 22, 2004 10:22 PM
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| The Deplorable Gourmet A Horde-sourced Cookbook [All profits go to charity] Top Headlines
What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)* Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown. A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask). * Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV. Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.
A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR. Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him. LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR. Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too. LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.
The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others. But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring: "But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said." In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power." I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron. Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring. I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do. But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.
Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]
Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."
Batman fires The Batman
Batman is disgusted by the Joachim Phoenix version of Joker Batman tries to fire Superman Batman is still workshopping his Bat-Voice
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Red Leather Suit and Sweatband Edition
And I was here to please I'm even on knees Makin' love to whoever I please I gotta do it my way Or no way at all
Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)
Sec. Army recognizes ODU Army ROTC cadets for their bravery and sacrifice in private ceremony
[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter One day I'm gonna get that faculty together Remember that everybody has to wait in line Oh, [Song Title], look out world, oh, you know I've got mine
US decimation of Iran's ICBM forces is due to Space Force's instant detection of launches -- and the launchers' hiding places -- and rapid counter-attack via missiles
AI is doing a lot of the work in analyzing images to find the exact hiding place of the launchers. Counter-strikes are now coming in four hours after a launch, whereas previously it might have taken days for humans to go over the imagery and data.
Robert Mueller, Former Special Counsel Who Probed Trump, Dies
“robert mueller just died,” trump wrote in a truth social post on march 21. “good, i’m glad he’s dead. he can no longer hurt innocent people! president donald j. trump.”
Canadian School Designates Cafeteria And Lunchroom As "No Food Zones" For Ramadan
Canada and the UK are neck and neck in the race to become the first western country to fall to Islam [CBD] Recent Comments
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