Mary Mapes, former CBS producer, has written a book about her attempt to influence the 2004 US Presidential Election using a set of laughably amateur forged papers and sparking the incident colloquially know as Rathergate. The title of the book? Truth and Duty (audio CD). I'm sure lots of fun can be had with that title.
Most of you know the story, so I won’t bore you with it. I simply have a question for the women (and the men, I guess). Regarding this reported reaction from Ms. Mapes when the jig was up and various website analyses were exposing the CBS papers on President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service as frauds:
“And right now, on the Internet, it appeared everything was falling apart. I had a real physical reaction as I read the angry online accounts. It was something between a panic attack, a heart attack, and a nervous breakdown. My palms were sweaty; I gulped and tried to breathe. . . . The little girl in me wanted to crouch and hide behind the door and cry my eyes out."
Since you’ve been an adult, have you ever felt like the part emphasized? Have you ever gone all little-girl in a crisis? Maybe it’s me, but, that is just weird.
But I suppose that I would indeed have a cow if I had attempted to pass phony papers about the president and was outted instantly in front of millions.
Welcome to the 21st century, Ms. Mapes.
People like Ms. Mapes are some of the most frightening of all. Anything can be justified in the name of a "righteous" cause. She still doesn't think that she did anything wrong and getting a book deal--accruing profit--from the scandal she helped create only re-inforces that willful blindness. Kinda helps to make a person cynical, no?
Cheer up. God is in control.
(Thanks to LGF)
