There must be some kind of karmic irony involved in the appearance of Mary Mapes on Howard Kurtz’s CNN show “Reliable Sources” today (transcript here); I appeared briefly with Salon’s Eric Boehlert in the segment following Mapes.
Mapes is making the rounds peddling her new book. In the book she continues to insist on the authenticity of the blatantly fraudulent documents provided to Mapes by Bill Burkett and the accuracy of the rest of the story she produced for the 60 Minutes II September 8, 2004 broadcast. Burkett is of course the mother of all unreliable sources, and with her new book Mapes now steps into his shoes.
Mary Mapes has become the O.J. Simpson of investigative journalism. It’s a shame Kurtz didn’t ask her how the hunt for Lucy Ramirez — the woman who supposedly provided those wonderful documents from the personal files of Col. Jerry Killian to Burkett — is going.
To prepare for the show this morning I spent the weekend rereading the Thornburgh-Boccardi Report on the 60 Minutes II story together with John’s posts on it. When I get a chance tonight or tomorrow, I’ll try to summarize some of the interesting findings I had forgotten about.
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