Mary Mapes--CBS Hangs Her Out to Dry

Mary Mapes is Dan Rather's long time producer; she was the producer for the Ra^therGate stories and subsequent defenses. And CBS has offered up her head on a platter, in today's USA Today:

CBS 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.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that Mapes arranged for Burkett to talk to a top aide to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

And--after years of touting Dan Rather as the tough investigative journalist--CBS suddenly is minimizing Rather's role to protect him:

In television news and on newsmagazines such as 60 Minutes, producers do the lion's share of the reporting legwork, with correspondents and anchors such as Rather the stars who take credit -- or in this case, the blame. Rather, who identifies himself on The CBS Evening News as "reporting" from New York, is known in the industry as being very active in the nuts and bolts of actual reporting, but producers such as Mapes are the unseen hands behind the stories.

Got that?--when he screws up, Rather's just an actor in a suit!

The USA Today story also includes another howler: "Standard journalistic ethical practices forbid reporters from doing anything that could be perceived as helping a political campaign." I'll bet you didn't know liberal bias violated "standard journalistic ethical practices"--or even that there were any ethics among the major media. Carrying the thought further, shouldn't someone complain to the Federal Election Commission that CBS's entire news budget must be considered a contribution to the Kerry campaign, one that is flatly unlawful under McCain-Feingold?

Meanwhile, CBS named an outside panel to investigate Ra^therGate:

Dick Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania and United States attorney general under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and Louis D. Boccardi, retired president and chief executive officer of the Associated Press.

Both are capable and credible people. But, consider this: will CBS fire Rather if the panel faults him? After all, in the face of fictitious stories and mistakes in management, senior editors resigned at the New York Times and USA Today.

Well, as John Kerry says, "bring it on!" Meanwhile, I'll be listening to the opera Salome--and reading from the New Testament, Mark 6:25, where Salome asks Herod, "I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist."